Tu Hongtao

Tu Hongtao (屠涛 Born in 1976 in Chengdu in Sichuan province). Tu Hongtao impresses the art world and the audience with his unique quality as an artist, such as the “bad boy” in him, light and lively brushwork, as well as the urban “live like” enhanced by the scenic setting and the narrative style of stream-of-consciousness. In reaction to the pictorial deficiencies common to the previous generation, he tries to “avoid being a repeated symbol” by highlighting thematically the participation in “the current of flowing time” while keeping certain distance — “enjoy it while criticizing” and “taste the pain while feeling happiness”, as he put it. It is typical of the situation and stand of the young generation, seemingly contradictory but extremely true. In their view, the absolute binary opposition is abandoned, the moral judgment is suspended, and art, as a text, begins to show its autonomy and capacity to produce pleasurable feeling in the aesthetic game.

Tu Hongtao: “I am trying to be a director, fantastical fabricating dolls, violent scenes, materialized beauties as well as erotic pictures which come from the internet, computer games and cartoons, turning them into coquettish, but real theater. I hope to create an experience of randomness, confusion, hope and sadness—all elaborated from my personal experience.”

Compared with his previous works dealing with the relationship of invasion and threat between human being and the city, Tu Hongtao’s new works highlighted his way of narration and endow the artist with a balancing role, rather than a narrator. In The Desire of Plants, the spatial relationship between plants is not distinct but blurred. It becomes an open structure where expansion means more possibilities. Therefore, the subjects are given more freedom to drift, which is undoubtedly more disturbing.

C.V.

Red Plum and Sofa, 90x70cm, Oil on...面油画.jpg

Other and former works: