AIKE is pleased to announce the opening of Tang Dixin’s eponymous solo exhibition “Tang Dixin” on 7 November 2021, which will run until 26 December. The eight paintings featured in “Tang Dixin” continue the artist’s painting style between figuration and abstraction, intuitive brushstrokes and more intense colour collisions, further deepening Tang’s ongoing exploration of gesture, momentum, and emotional tension. This exhibition also marks the artist’s third solo exhibition at AIKE, following “Mr Hungry” (2014) and “Tang Dixin” (2017).
The subjects in Tang’s paintings often include close-ups of partial bodies, deformed limbs connected by hands and feet, and skeletons and muscles clutching each other. The adhesions among these body parts do not seem to follow the physiological structure of the human body but are arbitrarily dismantled and manipulated. The initially fragmented body modules are reassembled together through the exchange and substitution of organs and tissues. The works in the exhibition follow the same creation model, but turn into a more loose and abstract visual language. The already separated bodies become even more scattered, leaving only the outlines and physical dynamics of the figures. In some cases, the collision and mingling of passionate streams of colour make it difficult to distinguish even where the figures are.
The artist has recently focused his painting practice on the exploration of gestures. Rather than depicting the psychological state, the artist believes that the sketching of physical appearance sometimes more effectively captures one’s spiritual core. If the skeletons and muscle tissues represent the homogeneity shared within the human body, the emotions leaked from one’s gestures are the indicators that breakthrough this sameness and bring out each person’s individuality. Tang first sets up a specific tone or atmosphere in his creative process and then transforms intentional figurative shapes into a specific relationship among his characters. Through the subversion of the logic of individual forms, the figures are drawn into a rhythm that is either static, intense, or tumbling, thus acquiring a kind of dynamic tension that is invisible but sensible. The artist deliberately avoids the interference of photographic equipment and line draft in his compositions and instead paints directly on the canvas, embodying a visual sensation that sustains a sense of touch. Sight discovers in itself a specific function of touch, exploring the potential energy that lies in the image and dismantling the layers of relationships among the figures. It makes the act of painting a kind of spontaneous self-generation, which implies the freedom of expression only through the medium of painting.
Text/Huirong Ye