Zhang Peng's Photo-dolls

Photo-dolls

Dolls and bright colors are the protagonists in Zhang Peng’s work—women and girls posing in theatrical postures, living everyday life in a dream world.

There is nothing strange about a tired ballerina lying on a sofa with a cat next to her. On the contrary, it is the symbolism of innocence and fragility. The ballerina’s face, still heavy with makeup after a tiring performance, is looking at something in the far distance, obviously at some kind of movement or noise, and the cat looks in the same direction. 

This picture gives you the sense of a still from an animated movie, and the reason you get that feeling is because the ballerina is not a living human but a doll, just like the little white doll. The next thing that overwhelms you looking at the picture is the strong red colors, only broken by the ballerina’s white dress and the cat’s white fur.

Dolls and bright colors are the protagonists in Zhang Peng’s work. Zhang Peng was born in Shandong, and graduated from Wu Zuo Ren Art Secondary School in Beijing, and later from Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. 

From paint to photography

During his studies, Zhang Peng focused on painting. Later he turned to photography, slowly transforming to the style we can see in his photos today with dolls and strong colours. Still, if you see his earlier works you will understand that there is a continuation. 

His early paintings are women and girls posing in theatrical postures, living everyday life in a dream world. His colors are also strong, with red dominating everything. His women wear heavy makeup and always look ready to act in an invisible play that only they know of.

Trying to understand why the artist suddenly changed to photography from painting, and studying his early painting work, I received a sense of the perfection the artist carries. While in the photographs the staged backgrounds leave the artist with space to expand and focus on his protagonists, in his paintings the background is limited, often leaving a sense of emptiness.

In the staged photographs, there is the strong feeling of a play. The background is part of the play as much as the figure of the doll in front. And covering the background, the artist is free to focus on the details.

A perfectionist 

In a photo with a doll wearing a traditional dress while sitting on a sofa, the background is simple—a curtain decorated with flowers—and the sofa is a plain red sofa. Then comes the doll, and there the details overwhelm you. 

It is not just the detailed reference to the original dress, but also the careful turns of the fabric on the doll’s knees that allow the viewer to see the pattern on the fabric in its full glory. It is also all the small things on the floor, the small hand fan or the makeup brush that show that this is a whole play in action. 

Zhang Peng’s photographs are very unique and very alive in their own way. The bright red he usually uses in his backgrounds comes as a strong contrast to the doll’s skin and clothes, and then there are all the small details that make the photograph a picture with a story of a thousands words.