Focus on Tian Wei

In this Focus presentation, October Gallery will exhibit a selection of artworks by Tian Wei, renowned for his striking monochromatic canvases in bold colours that explore the written word and the plasticity of meaning.

Both theoretically and formally, Tian Wei’s work constructs a bridge between things that appear as polar opposites or complementary pairs. Using the Chinese idea of contraries held in balance (yin and yang), words and quotations in minute script fill the backdrop of Tian’s paintings, forming a patterned ground on which larger semi-abstract shapes are drawn. On trying to read these foregrounded lines as Chinese characters, however, anyone familiar with Chinese ideographic script is soon frustrated, since the unfamiliar writing can only be resolved in English. In fact, the cursive lines spell out simple English words, such as ‘sexy,’ ‘soul’ and ‘red.’ These selected English adjectives and nouns represented in Chinese calligraphic style give the viewer insight into the artist’s lived experience of an emerging synergy between eastern and western sensibilities.