FASHION STATEMENT

The 2023 Bennett Prize goes to painter Shiqing Deng

- SARAH GIANELLI

There’s something mischievous about the tinkling laugh that punctuates Shiqing Deng’s otherwise demure demeanor. Her work has a similar quality— it is one thing on the surface but there are layers of information, innuendo and, yes, humor—coursing beneath it. Although she claims her work is not meant to be serious or a form of social commentary, decoding the symbolism insists otherwise.

Deng, whose friends call her “Demo, ”is the recipient of the 2023 Bennett Prize, the largest prize offered solely to women figurative realist painters. She will be awarded $50,000, giving her the opportunity to spend the next two years creating new work in the figurative realist style for a solo exhibition that will ultimately travel the country. She plans to use the funds to help with rent for her Brooklyn studio, art supplies and realize her desire to make more ambitious work—even larger, more experimental—and, though she hesitates to share, assist with the expensive process of securing a Visa. Not only will the Bennett Prize mitigate legal fees, but it also strengthens her credibility as an applicant.

Born in Xi’an, China, Deng earned her bachelor’s degree in fine art in Beijing at the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Art. The school had a connection with New York Academy of Art and in 2016 she decided to apply for their MFA program. The school appealed to Deng because its focus was more traditional and on the figurative, rather than many art schools in New York City which lean contemporary and conceptual. She was also looking to get out of Beijing, because of the pollution and because most artists painted in the same style—“So much so that if you covered the signature you wouldn’t know whose work was whose,” says Deng.