Amanda Ba's Psychosexual Canine Fantasies in Painting

Amanda Ba, born in 1998 in Columbus, Ohio, to first-generation Chinese-American parents, spent her first five years with grandparents in Hefei, China, and is now based in New York. Critics often foreground diasporic memory in her work, but her psychosexual fantasies, particularly involving her American Bully dog, are more salient. In large oil paintings like 'Sublime Reconciliation' and 'Suburban Giantess,' Ba depicts herself nude with the dog in intimate, often sexually charged poses. Works such as 'My Beast, All Mine,' 'Bitch and Bull,' 'Dog Woman Releasing Dog Fart,' 'Running On All Fours Towards the Future,' 'American Girl, American Bully, American Bomb,' 'Sharing a Meal,' and 'Guarding Narcissus' explore a blurred boundary between human and animal, challenging pet-owner hierarchies. When the animal is absent, Ba portrays herself as a giantess in power dynamics with others. Her style is characterized by intense emotionality, cinnabar red atmospheres, and unapologetic libidinal expression.