Jingze Du

Steve Turner is pleased to present Metropolis, the New York debut solo exhibition by Dublin-based Jingze Du that features recent paintings which represent the artist’s love of American popular culture, art history and painting itself, interests that Du formed during the first thirteen years of his life in Yantai, China and the next fourteen in Dublin, Ireland. His vantage point is an interesting one, for though he only visited the United States for the first time in February, 2023, he has admired its culture from afar and has made it a subject in his work for the last five years. Metropolis includes a painting of Eminem, one of a bull and one of the Mona Lisa. These portraits or portraits of portraits are painted in one of Du’s idiosyncratic styles, half in his well known meticulous style that he fleshes out with thinned down oil in shades of black, gray and white, and the rest characterized by loosely painted gestures, swiftly made, with choppy and feathery details, all in shades of gray. The combination of themes and styles is Du’s ode to America, the fantasy of all who look at her from afar.

Jingze Du (b. 1995, Yantai, China) moved to Dublin when he was thirteen years old. He later earned his BA at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin (2017) and his MA from the Royal College of Art, London (2019). He has had solo exhibitions at Sifang Museum, Shanghai (2022); Steve Turner, Los Angeles (May & October, 2020, 2021 & 2023) and Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021). This is his fifth solo exhibition with Steve Turner.