Grandma

Shao Fan’s inspiration for Grandma (2009) came from traditional Chinese ancestor portraits, typically used for family ancestor worship during the late imperial period (Ming and Qing dynasties). The title Grandma for Shao’s painting is not incidental, but a tribute to his own maternal grandmother. Raised by his grandma, Shao said that his childhood had been immersed in traditional Chinese culture and he learned to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of “oldness.” Grandma demonstrates how the enduring practice of Chinese ancestor portrait painting is honoured, transformed, and reinvented with Shao’s personal interpretation.

Shao manipulates the century-old artistic genre in the Western media--oil on canvas. He depicts the lady from the frontal perspective—the most formal, standard position of sitters seen in the tradition ancestor portraits to receive the offspring’s veneration. However, emitting her body, Shao represents only her face in a manner of zoom-in and cropping, which abstracts her from an individual person. While a sense of volume of her face is created by applying subtle palettes and using the western technique of modeling, there is complete lack of one point of light source. As a result, there is no trace of shadows on her face, which is also a strong preference in traditional Chinese portraiture. Interestingly, grandma’s old age is revealed only through her gray hairs and facial contour. Her skin tone appears smooth and even illuminous without any sign of wrinkles. In this way Shao honors her timeless “oldness.” Grandma may symbolize the eternal artistic allure of traditional Chinese culture to the artist.