This series of Deng Jianjin’s paintings, made between 2006 and 2008, explores the world of dreams – and nightmares. His colour schemes here are more varied, the fantasies include public humiliation and spanking, and he introduces superimposed text in many of the canvases reflecting what the protagonists might be turning over in their minds. In the second painting, for example, the text near the man’s head includes ‘The Calculus of Desire’ – whose pleasure is whose?