Dangdai Dolls:
The Great Doll of China Portraits
Background
Chinese contemporary artist Lee Shi-min has brought the former glory of Chinese imperial dynasties to life through his Dangdai series by the personification of consecutive dynasties by iconic dynastic figures which he has termed dynasticlasts. The works in the series feature dynasticlast portraits of imperial and tribal women wearing elaborate animist attire and Chinese mountain beanie hats (wan-mao) strongly imbued with corresponding dynastic colors.
In artistic terms, Dangdai is a fresh, innovative and original series of works of clarity and vision that offers a further element of multi-dimensionality, order of depth and degree of sophistication to Chinese imperial tradition where the exclusion of males signifies a long overdue tribute to, edification and acknowledgment of female contribution to the great establishments, accomplishments and achievements manifest throughout Chinese dynastic times -- a historically significant and important set of paintings being the first and only modern visualization by a prominent contemporary artist of a full succession of Chinese empresses and tribal women spanning over two millennia.
The series is a prime example of the artist’s mode, method or approach of incorporating or combining several unique, identifying features to great visual effect in works that are recalled at once. The face of each character in the series follows the artist’s proprietary formula and signature proportions for facial beauty, cuteness and appeal; each face is formed by a masterful arrangement of nine distinct tribal markings, common elements by form and color: eyes are expressed as open pearl-bearing blue clams, accentuating the upper and lower eyelids, embedded in concentric forms of two sea-fishes (the larger green, the smaller red), highlighting the orbits of the eyes; a trinity of three brown Chinese character seal tattoos (one bearing the doll's name, one bearing the Chinese characters for "now" (the present), and one bearing the Chinese characters for "forever" (the future)) which honorably take the form of plan views, pointing upstream, of the upper decks of Ming Admiral Zheng He’s monumental treasure ships upon which he launched his epic voyages across the Western oceans in the first half of the fifteeth century, an allegory for the rebirth, rejuvenation and revitalization of the same spirit of discovery in the Dangdai Dolls, set in a triangular arrangement around the eyes.
The Great Doll of China Portraits
In each one of the twelve supremely stylized full-frontal facial large-format works, a Dangdai Doll's visage is framed above by two sets of three colorful flowing 3-whorl clouds, one on each side, forming hair, that also symbolize, by their colors, the Rainbow Forest in the Valley of the Falls where the Dangdai Dolls reside, and by their shapes and forms, the misty swirling clouds of the Enchanted Terrace of the Talls at the peak of the Mountain of Heavenly Calls, where the Dangdai Dolls associated animals, Animal Kind resides. The wave-cloud forms give rise to six corresponding colour areas: red and green, blue and orange, and purple and yellow; faces are recognizable by unique colour combinations. A long narrow middle gap separates these two curvilinear sets which symbolizes the Valley of the Falls or a Cathay gateway, channel or stream to the past through which all time seals traverse and references a mythological flooding or parting of the seas.
The harbour of the body of the face may symbolize the Blue Lagoon while a pair of conjoined upturned eighth notes, one on each side of the face, sounds the Dangdai Dolls love of music. A parallel pair of corresponding Chinese zodiac animal head silhouettes, in place of pupils, is embedded in the doll's circular color-coded eye reflections, a portal symbol of imminent adventure, discovery and excitement. The trademark cat-nose miao-mao (meaning fine cat) takes the form of a dark wide-eyed caricature cat keyhole into the soul, in reference to the curious feline nature of the Dolls, which stands just above the lips formed by a silhouette of an outstretched dollcon (a type of falcon that soars high above Dangdai Village around the peaks of the Mountain of Heavenly Calls) pointing upwards in normal flight. All the major structures that frame the body of the face are underscored by subtly finely tapered bold black outlines.
Several tiers of undulating wave-form patterns of varying intensity at the bottom of each portrait, whose top wave lines form and flow along the chin and lower jaw lines of the face, may represent both the foothills of the Mountain of Heavenly Calls and the ever-moving waters of the Glacial Lake of Eternal Squalls through which the dolls appear to surge forward or emerge from: imagery that references evolution, the constancy of change, and continuing development and progress of life and the human species.
The perfectly balanced compositions, which adopt open-plan faces that allow plenty of room for imagination, are purely symbolic epitomes of elegance in simplicity while the combinations of dynamic, ornamental and abstract elements, forms and lines in this brilliantly colorful, color-coded flagship series of works reference air, land and marine animals in the highest regard for Mother Nature, clearly illustrate the artist's exceptional ability to conceive, render and convey universal multi-directional concepts in a physical medium of two dimensions, and make for an auspicious, grand tribute to the more aesthetic gender of the human species, curvilinear, rounded, refined: a triumph of modern contemporary art that leaves one's head in the clouds.
The names of each of the dynasticlast doll characters and related attributes are:
Dynasticlast Doll Name : Animal : Signature Color : Season
1. Dong-dong : Rat : Gray : Winter
2. Lan-lan : Ox : Blue : Winter
3. Qing-qing : Tiger : Green : Spring
4. Fen-fen : Rabbit : Pink : Spring
5. Huang-huang : Dragon : Yellow : Spring
6. Hong-hong : Snake : Red : Summer
7. Dai-dai : Horse : Black : Summer
8. Xia-xia : Ram : Cyan : Summer
9. Xing-xing : Monkey : Magenta : Autumn
10. Zi-zi : Rooster : Purple : Autumn
11. Yun-yun : Dog : Orange : Autumn
12. Fei-fei : Boar : Brown : Winter
Please stay tuned for the release of the large-format portraits of the Dangdai Dolls: The Great Doll of China!