Dominique Fung, © The artist & Massimo de Carlo
Dominique Fung (b. 1987, Ottawa, Canada) is a Brooklyn-based artist whose surrealist oil paintings critique Orientalism and the historical objectification of Asian women in art. Drawing inspiration from scholar Anne Anlin Cheng’s theory of Ornamentalism, Fung explores the aestheticization of Asian women, blending her own experiences as a second-generation Chinese-Canadian with a focus on memory, tradition and overlooked histories. Her works transform objects like vases, foo dogs and other cultural artifacts into evocative, human-like portraits, reclaiming their agency while challenging the Western gaze.
Fung’s intricate, honey-toned canvases juxtapose soft, dreamlike aesthetics with unsettling elements like dismembered body parts and sharp objects, creating a quietly disorienting world. Through these works, she flips Orientalist tropes, giving vases and vessels human qualities while reducing people to inanimate parts, reflecting the reductive treatment of Asian identities in history and personal experience.
Her extensive exhibition history includes solo and group shows at major institutions such as Massimo de Carlo (London), the Rockefeller Center (New York), Jeffrey Deitch (Los Angeles and New York) and the Pond Society (Shanghai). By imbuing historical artifacts with life and layering complex, non-linear narratives, Fung carves out new spaces of belonging and meaning in contemporary art.