Emotion No. 1 by Ding Hui, 2008, with a woman embracing a large cat as both look outward through a vivid red field and violet-grey curves
Emotion No. 1 by Ding Hui, 2008, with a woman embracing a large cat as both look outward through a vivid red field and violet-grey curves Emotion Series No. 1 — cat gaze and red field detail Emotion Series No. 1 — woman face and purple-grey hair detail Emotion Series No. 1 — expressive brushwork detail Emotion Series No. 1 — cat and human figure composition detail Emotion Series No. 1 — full framed view Emotion Series No. 1 — red surface texture detail Emotion Series No. 1 — color and line detail

Established

Emotion No. 1

Artist Ding Hui
Creation Date 2008
Material Oil on canvas
Size 80 x 60 cm
Category Original Art
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Current total $7,152.00 SGD

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Perspectives

A closer look

Artwork Notes

Art appreciation

The woman’s face enters from the upper left and approaches the cat’s head. Her arms form linked curves above and below, enclosing the animal’s body at the centre. The cat’s ears open laterally, its bright eyes hold the strongest focal position, and nose, mouth and chest descend along the vertical axis. The woman’s gaze is slightly offset but remains nearly frontal. Their bodies touch while both sets of eyes address the outside, bringing the relationship into direct contact with the viewer.

Scarlet and rose pass through background, skin, clothing and fur, largely replacing local colour. Violet-grey, blue-black and small areas of grey-green curve around arms, hair, ears and body; shorter lines establish eyes, muzzle and paw. Some contours are firm, while others dissolve into neighbouring layers. Woman and cat therefore share one chromatic environment without losing their separate faces. Thin red ground and repeated looping marks give the painting a rapid, taut movement.

Ding’s figurative practice often uses animals and familiar objects to approach emotion, life and desire. The relationship is carried by direct contact: the arms physically hold the cat and the two faces look outward together. A female perspective, saturated red and free curves keep the contact from becoming a conventional sentimental pet image. The animal remains watchful, and the sitter’s mood is not reduced to one explanation.

Theme

Style and context

Portraits shared by people and animals can record companionship while comparing different responses to touch and attention. Expressionist painting compressed space and departed from natural colour so that contour and colour could carry psychological force. In Emotion No. 1, the red field and close crop make the embrace the structure of the entire image.

The work remains figurative: woman, cat, arms and eyes are all legible. Distortion and unusual colour serve the physical closeness between them. Ding later presented a solo exhibition titled Great Love Across Species, and human-animal relations recur in her practice. That sustained history of figure painting is present here in the close embrace, the two distinct expressions and the pressure of warm colour around the bodies.

Artist Profile

About the artist

Ding Hui was born in Xi'an to a family of Manchu, Han and Russian heritage and moved to Shenzhen in 1989. She entered the Oil Painting Department of Xi'an Peihua Women's University at sixteen, later studied at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and graduated from Hong Kong Fashion Design Academy in 1998.

Training in painting and design led her from realist figure construction towards a freer contemporary figurative language. Animals, red wine and everyday objects recur as ways to address emotion, life and desire. Dense colour, looping lines and selective distortion place bodily relationships at the centre of the image.

She participated in the 2007 Shenzhen Contemporary Art Presentation Exhibition at Guanshan Yue Art Museum, held the solo exhibition Great Love Across Species in Shenzhen in 2010, and was selected for the 5th China Youth Contemporary Art Exhibition in 2012. Her principal series include Red Wine, Emotion and Animal Love.

Original Art

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