Dominique Fung — Born 1987, Ottawa, Canada. Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Represented by Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest/New York/Los Angeles.

 

Dominique Fung upends the objectification of Asian women in surreal paintings. In her paintings, baby blue hues dance with pastel pinks to create, at first glance, playful fantasies with Asian motifs. Like the works of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Jean-Léon Gérôme, Fung's scenes entice with nude women reclining among porcelain vessels. However, closer inspection reveals stray knives, impaled fruit and dismembered limbs; the mirage dematerializes. 

 

Fung was initially drawn to Dutch and Flemish paintings while studying to paint in the 17th-century academic style. "Being raised in Canada, that's all I had seen," Fung said in a recent interview. "Essentially, it was all that I aspired to be through the lens of a Eurocentric art history upbringing." She began to diverge from these Western ideals after seeing the way that Asian art was curated at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York, and major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The latter presented art objects and artifacts in a way that severed them from their historical significance. Asian artifacts and antiques are central to Fung's art practice, often meditating on the origins and the functions of these objects.

 

Fung received a BAA from Sheridan College Institute of Technology in Toronto. Recent exhibitions include Dominique Fung & Katherina Olschbaur: My Kingdom and a Horse, Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest; Dominique Fung: It's Not Polite To Stare, Jeffrey Deitch, New York; Relics and Remains, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles; Friends and Friends of Friends: Artistic Communities in the Age of Social Media, Schlossmuseum, Linz, Austria; Good Pictures (curated by Austin Lee), Jeffrey Deitch, New York; and Animal Kingdom, Alexander Berggruen, New York.