Damien H. Ding in Hyperallergic
Thank you to John Yau and Hyperallergic for an insightful overview of Damien H. Ding’s Simple Structures.
Excerpt from Damien H. Ding’s Dreams of a Modernist Past:
These are paintings that reveal themselves slowly; they reward introspection. […] “Triangular Portrait” (2023) is one of the most interesting portrait paintings I have seen in a long time. Are we looking at a face or a mask — or perhaps both? The title offers no clue. Everything seems heightened, in part due to the yellow and yellow-green tones that define the figure’s cheeks. The face, eyes downcast, conveys deep concentration as the person holds an instrument with a point. Are the interlocking geometric shapes that compose the head a comment on Cubism or on the “inscrutability” that White people sometimes read into Asian people? All too often, especially in Asian-American literature, what mainstream society wants is transparency in the form of autobiography or memoir. Ding courts narrative but doesn’t tell a story. His refusal to kowtow to the expectations of the art world, and of general US society, serves him well.
