Acrylic on canvas

100 × 80 cm. 39 3/8 × 31 1/2 in.

Signed in pinyin and dated on bottom right

LITERATURE
2023, Tan Ping 1972 – 2022, Wei Gallery, Hong Kong. p. 468
EXHIBITED
18 – 20 Jan 2019, Tan Ping solo booth at Taipei Dangdai Art and Ideas, Amanda Wei Gallery, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Amanda Wei Gallery, Hong Kong
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

A Circle Begins Anew, as Fiery and Radiant as Ever
Tan Ping's Exploration of Continuation and Renewal in the Abstract World

"When I face a canvas and pick up a brush, a purposeless journey begins."
——Tan Ping

Tan Ping is a prominent figure in contemporary Chinese abstract expressionism. After graduating from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1984, he stays at the academy as a teacher. In his thirties, he was awarded the DAAD scholarship and studied painting at the Berlin University of the Arts. His study abroad experience broadened his understanding of "lines" and he no longer confined himself to specific forms and categories. He realized that art should be a cognition and perception of the world and life. After returning to China five years later, he devoted himself tirelessly to creation and teaching over forty years, as if writing the history of Chinese abstract art-starting from naturalistic representation, developing into surrealism, and then flourishing in abstract expressionism, focusing on the connection between creation, society, and space, reflecting on life, death, and time. His works have been collected by several important institutions, including the National Art Museum of China, Shanghai Long Museum, Portland Art Museum in the United States, and Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany.

The Wheel of Life Keeps Turning

"In my opinion, when it comes to art, the more you express your own feelings and come closer to death in your heart, the more direct your expression becomes. Whether it is joy or pain, I have painted a lot, including black, which represents a desire for life. Pieces like these are very direct. This moment is particularly important."
——Tan Ping

In 2003, after witnessing his father's experience with cancer, Tan Ping was deeply moved when he saw tumour cells dissected like fish eggs. He transformed the form of cells into "circles" and spread them across the canvas to release his inner emotions. The "big circle" symbolizes individual growth, while the "small circle" represents the gradual fusion of cells in the micro world. After his father recovered, his inner fears gradually dissipated and the circles in his paintings eventually unfolded and deconstructed into "lines," floating to the edges. The images also became translucent and expansive. This gave birth to the Overspread Series in 2010, which is simple and natural like life itself. Influenced by art masters Piet Mondrian and Joseph Beuys, Tan Ping delved deep into the relationship between dots, lines, surfaces, and colours. Around 2018, he presented the sequel to the Overspread series, where lines and blocks interconnect and interpret his philosophy and passion for life.

"It was not developing abstraction towards its ultimate goal: the expression of pure reality. The rhythm of the relationship between colour and dimension…permits the absolute to appear."
——Piet Mondrian

Different from the idea of most artists to "preserve the beauty of the initial encounter," he daringly "destroys" his finished works repeatedly, similar to the repetitive process in printmaking. Through cyclic application, overlap, construction, and deconstruction, he buries the initial imagery layer by layer, only to reconstruct it and bring forth new life in an unceasing process. His works are full of dramatic tension. Untitled is one of his remarkable pieces, embodying the artist's courage and passion to face the past and start anew.

Amidst Scorching Sunlight, It Perseveres without Yielding

Diverging from the tranquil colour palette often seen in Tan Ping's works, this piece breaks the coldness with a circle bursting out of the upper part of the canvas, exuding warm vitality. The lines are like diverse musical instruments freely and joyously playing a symphony, splitting and revolving, progressing layer by layer, and ultimately merging into an expressive harmony. It echoes what Dr. Bartomeu Marí Ribas, the director of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, said: "Tan Ping's works started from the painterly type and transited to a theatrical effect. He dealt with the relationship among the image, object, and space perfectly." Careful observation of the work reveals the artist's thoughts hidden beneath the covered colours. The colours transition from vibrant to withering, breaking free from the constraints of painting. Each concealed layer, like the farewell and reappearance of a movement in music, instantly fades away.

The bright scarlet hue in the painting is overlaid on top of a watery grey blue. In every seam and crevice of the connection, one can faintly discern traces of the former transparent black, clear blue, and snow grey, with the quietly expressive white, implying the once real and now untraceable chromaticity and obscurity. The central brightness of tangerine orange extends infinitely outward like a light source, transforming into a finely rounded and iconic yellow that drifts toward the edge of the canvas, illuminating all the deeply buried hues. The surface of the painting appears to have been scraped by a palette knife, with lines of varying thickness converging under the light, and pigments flowing freely, gradually emerging in the radiance, particularly weightless, like boundless passion emanating from the calm background of life. As Tan Ping said, "My works are like human history, having undergone natural destruction and deliberate devastation, yet we can still see and feel the traces and atmosphere of the times." For him, art is a "present continuous tense," and in each moment of gathering and dispersing, he realized eternity.

The journey of life is full of twists and turns, but pain eventually becomes a memory, buried in happy times. All things are beautiful, warming at the centre as the ultimate thoughts on life conveyed in Untitled, Like the sentence in Little Dream Garden,"Let us bear the desolation and fear that arise from love and move forward with composure."

Price estimate:
HKD 200,000 – 400,000
USD 25,600 – 51,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 240,000