Moon in Glass, a new series of works by artist Ling Jian, employs portraiture, mirrors, installation and spatial design to create a seamless visual experience and an atmosphere that invites contemplation.

During three decades of living in Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin, Ling Jian became known for his stylized portraits – often produced on oversized circular canvases – of beautiful and highly expressive women. Through these women, the artist was able to explore themes ranging from materialism, wealth and political ideology to modern notions of female identity and body image. Since returning to Beijing in 2003, Ling Jian has increasingly turned his attention to conceptualizing contemporary Chinese identity.

What makes this exhibition different from his past work is the spatial design in which painting is presented as installation, and also his use of a new medium: specially-manufactured coloured mirrors printed with portraits. The yueliangmen, or “moon gates,” at either end of the exhibition space are familiar fixtures in traditional Chinese gardens, but the garden within is decidedly modern: moon-shaped portraits of beatific beauties on canvas and on glass, and a wall adorned with brightly-colored circular mirrors. Ling Jian’s “angels” are both hyper-realistic and stylistically exaggerated: their broad foreheads, narrow chins, full lips and wide eyes reflect modern standards of beauty and shades of cultural identity. Reproducing their portraits on mirrors creates a dual distortion, heightening the abstraction and transforming angels into not-so-angelic vehicles of identity, vessels of information in an increasingly abstract age. When they beckon to us from behind the looking glass, we are compelled to approach, motivated by instinct, habit or human curiosity. As we draw nearer, their portraits begin to dissipate, replaced by our own reflected images, hidden insecurities and private self-portraits.

In mirroring the subtle shifts of identity and never-ending dynamic between self and society, Moon in Glass describes a circle that is both personal and collective, infinite yet circumscribed.

Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director