Dou Rong Jun

At different intervals, everyone’s development leaves different memories. Youthful faces become old and fragile, innocent eyes grow numb. Different life experiences, different trails of emotions; every message about life is recorded on each of our individual bodies. Thus, we often can read one or many stories from minute details of the body.

Meanwhile, because of interaction with other people and the influence of the resulting relationships, those same stories may not be hard to read from the body. To compound the issue, every relationship has its own distances and perspectives and can be seen from different angles, leaving impressions on both bodies of the parties involved. As humans, much of our existence and sense of being is inextricably tied to the various relationships we have in society. The principles and standards for various relationships adapt to the changing times. However, the most basic things about interpersonal relationships remain the same. In the artist’s works, many moments are condensed, making relationships between people more transparent and clear.

Intricate and moving depictions have always been one of the essential characteristics of paintings.

Dou Rong Jun chooses to use the language of paintings to capture the subject’s details and the subtle, delicate stories between people that are not always easy to grasp. In each of his works, there is sensitivity with every brushstroke in a highly appropriate conveyance of emotion. At the same time, he possesses an uncanny ability to control the picture’s surface, enabling every single painting’s overall appeal to be extremely strong, such that it arrests the attention and stirs up the feelings of viewers. On the spatial plane of the canvas, the contrasts and positions of the subjects’ forms express the tension and melodious harmony between the subjects. All of this has been so well condensed into the artist’s language of art that it does not reveal traces in his artworks.

For the viewer, every single work by Dou Rong Jun impacts them with an unadulterated, cultural and sociological experience. Dou has transported his personal, inner thoughts onto his works, using similar youths as subjects to represent emotions, to express life.

I, as the artist himself and you, it can be anyone of you; any person with relations. It is this understanding of you and me that co-exists in the artists’ inner world.