Jingze Du’s angular paintings blow animals up to cartoonish proportions

The China born and Dublin-based painter Jingze Du has one thing to say: “I love animals.” In Jingze’s minimalist and angular paintings, the “unfiltered and true” nature of animals is front and center. It's true, there’s just something about animals that’s so endearing and hilarious, even when they aren’t doing anything. Jingze’s interest in animals is explored in his monochromatic pieces that inflate heads and bodies to cartoonish proportions, flooding the canvas with a simplicity that brings out humour and cuteness. Living in Ireland, the unlikely inspiration for these paintings, Jingze became inspired by the “quietness and sense of scale” at the edge of the Atlantic. “You’re never far from the sea or a mountain or a field, that proximity to nature makes you feel both grounded and fragile,” says Jingze. “It’s poetic in its own way – a stark contrast to the noise and structures of cities like London or New York.”

The stillness of his paintings, in their glossy, almost frozen textures, represents a sense of detachment from the machinery of the wider world. Each furry subject brings a personality of its own, whether it’s an angry gorilla, miniature pony, or a contorted rabbit, Jingze’s greatest speciality is bringing out the vastness of their black eyes, sparkling like obsidian marbles.

It’s tremendous how much colour Jingze can remove and yet still retain the entirety of his zoological figures with just the smallest contours and feathered shadows. Through trial and errors, Jingze developed his style organically, attempting to communicate the soft serenity of his paintings by refining his techniques, in order for it “to appear effortless and simple”. Jingze’s Chinese heritage plays a part in his paintings. “Someone once said to me ‘Chinese paintings are invitations to complete the experience of looking,’” says Jingze, whose main goal is to create paintings that allow people to bring a part of their own narrative to the deceptively simple animals. Working with thinned-out paint on canvas, Jingze also mirrors the fluidity of ancient Chinese scroll paintings and the contemplative simplicity of the subjects. “People often tell me they see themselves in the paintings, which I find deeply rewarding,” says Jingze.