TIAN LIMING (B. 1955)

Urban Girl

Details

TIAN LIMING (B. 1955)
Urban Girl
Scroll, mounted and framed
Ink and colour on paper
69.7 x 49.5 cm. (27 3/8 x 19 1/2 in.)
Executed in 2014

Further Details

TIAN LIMING (B. 1955)
Selected exhibitions
2014 Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (solo)
2013 Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (group)
Nina Torres Art Gallery, Miami, USA (group)
2010 National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China (group)
2004 China Art Museum, Shanghai, China (group)
2002 Museo de Arte Contempor?neo, Santiago, Chile (group)
2001 Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (group)
2000 Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China (group)
1994 Soobin Art Gallery, Singapore (group)

Notable collections
Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China

Born in Beijing in 1955, Tian served in the army before enrolling in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1982 where he continues to teach today. Tian currently serves on the Committee of the Chinese Artists Association and as an honorary professor of the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.
With an idiosyncratic sensitivity for light and colour, the ink art of Tian Liming emanates the ease, serenity and grace distinctive of Chinese paintings while enlivening the century-old scholarly tradition with a contemporary outlook. He has established himself as a painter of modern life: his restrained and flattened figures are depicted in soft, pastel-like colours and transparent washes, shrouded in a lustrous and almost Impressionistic light. There is a soothing Zen-like tranquillity in Tian's realistic portrayal of the everyday. Against the hustling metropolis or crowded landscapes, his figures are imbued with a spirit of contemporary humanism.

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Lot Essay

The title of Tian Liming's first major solo exhibition Light Air Water aptly captures the essence of his art. Tian sees his own daily life as the inspiration of his art, and his brush follows the inner beauty that he discovers from the ordinary. Whether picturing a collective activity such as group photo-taking as seen in Childhood or a female portrait such as Urban Girl, Tian's paintings give a breath of fresh air to the traditional genre of figure painting. Full of pastel colours and light, these scenes of mundane life are instilled with optimism and freshness. Tian once mentioned how by accidentally dripping water onto a paper with a brush he created an effect of light and translucency. This special technique blends the colours together to form perfectly harmonious compositions. It is through such harmony that Tian expresses his attitude toward man's relationship with nature and a tranquil spiritual experience that he wishes his viewers to enjoy.

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