My Brother

My Brother (2012) by Liu Dahong

Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm

Collector: Susan Acret

I love this charming narrative of everyday family life in China by Liu Dahong, born in 1962 in Qingdao in Shandong Province. My Brother depicts an intimate domestic scene of two brothers fighting as other siblings play and their mother sits at a sewing machine, and, somewhat whimsically, a duck flies across the room. It’s quite different to many of his other works, which are of epic historical events in Chinese history and are often satirical in their commentary, reminding me of Pieter Breugel’s morality painting of the 1500s.

I bought this work from Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong during an exhibition of the artist’s work in 2013. I enjoy the small scale of the work, but also the detail and the action of the painting. I also like the fact that this is a figurative oil painting, and, as such, it is unlike many of the works in my collection, which are more ‘contemporary’ in technique and medium.

Susan Acret

(Susan Acret is a writer, editor, advisor and collector with particular expertise in the field of contemporary art of the Asia-Pacific region.)