The Executives, 2010-2012
series of animations and gouache ink on paper

The Executives is a series of drawings and animations that respond to the collapse of the  finance industry. Every decade has its celebrity type.  In the 60’s it was the protester, the 80’s it was the singer, the 90’s the dotcom start up.  Today it’s the CEO (chief executive officer) and tomorrow perhaps, the architect. Rather than turn the financial crisis into a plea of injustice, Eng approaches this subject with a Jungian and sociological eye. The executive is grouped as a power authority archetype reduced to a suit and tie. Eliminating the head is not meant as a violent statement. She eliminates the entire body and redraws the psyche as thought patterns visualized by line and gesture.

Eng predominantly works in video but has been making portraits since 1993. She is not interested in capturing the physical likeness in a portrait but the psychological gesture of figures. Like her other work in moving images, the emphasis is on gesture. Thus, one notices the subtle thread of abstract expressionism and calligraphy in much of her work.

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Eng sometimes includes drawings in her videos. The drawings serve as ‘maps’, diagrams or textures in her time-based work. However, with The Executive series her intention was only to make two-dimensional static work. The flash animations proceeded the ink on paper.