Untitled

Two translucent human figures appear on a chaotic background of melting hues of bright blue, vivid red and white. T'ang's works are always filled with brilliant tones that are finely layered. As if they are living creatures, these lines organically sprawl across the entire picture plane and transform themselves into thousands of rich and nuanced shades. The white part gives an extensive depth to the composition in creating a vibrant space filled with nucleus energy, while the yellow brushstrokes outline figurative elements in the background. The predominant red colour is essential in T'ang's oeuvre. Like in Untitled (Fig. 1) its incandescent feature renders a certain urgency. It is also the colour of his distinctive signature like an ancient Chinese seal. As the wind and the breath, the empty space is a fundamental and complex element in T'ang's painting, a vital parameter to any of his compositions. Untitled (Lot 2) also embodies the tension between abstraction and figuration, T'ang testifying of his artistic freedom against the mainstream Western abstract practice of his time. "I think that total abstraction is a dead end, only justified by theory, expressing itself through a fleshless verbK Painting can only evolve from some degree of concrete figuration. Thus, it can regenerate itself without losing itself and spread within the areas of affectivity and spirituality"(T'ang Haywen quoted in the introduction in the exhibition catalogue, Paths of Ink, by Philippe Koutouzis, Musée Guimet, Paris, France, 2002). Whereas the two representational modes were competing against each other under the European scope, the Taoist philosophy helped T'ang understand that on the contrary their complementarity enriches his artistic experience with a new tension. Therefore in a unique approach beyond any categorization T'ang Haywen enters the history of abstract landscape which finds its first lights with William Turner and the Impressionists in the 19th Century. T'ang develops a universal practice at the threshold between the conception of traditional Chinese landscape infused with the painter's own subjectivity and the modern developments of Western abstract painting, where form and colour are renewed in a transcendental expression. In this sense T'ang Haywen is the direct heir of Kandinsky, the abstract master, who similarly considered the artwork in a spiritual way, a thought the Russian artist developed in his writing Concerning the Spiritual in Art, a milestone in Western modern art. He also considers art as a collective undertaking towards the unique spiritual goal, a vision that T'ang helped promote through his practice and his abjuration of the artist's ego.