Path to wealth (2013) by Uuriintuya DagvasambuuQueensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
'Path to wealth' was painted by Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu in 2013.
If you zoom into the work, you can see the tangle of bodies around the trunk and base of the tree...
...from which dangles a collection of household objects, including a frying pan, a bathtub, a teapot, and a picture frame.
The influence of Buddhist painting is apparent here, with the bodies melding into one another...
...and the resemblance of a lotus flower, which blooms out from the trunk.
Dagvasambuu’s work is an example of contemporary Mongol zurag, a critical revival of a painterly idiom developed during the Mongolian independence movement of the early twentieth century.
Characterised by its ultra-fine brushwork, bright colours, flattened perspective, and themes drawn from everyday life, Mongol zurag (Mongolian painting) takes elements of Tibetan Buddhist tangka painting, Chinese guohua, and the Khitan equestrian art of the Liao dynasty (907–1125).
This style of painting also addressed themes of secular nationalism at the time of Mongolia’s declaration of independence from the Manchu Qing empire after China’s Xinhai Revolution of 1911.
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