A philosophical notion can be delved through the lenses of the emblematic golden visions in Tian Yuan’s paintings. The ordinary objects accompanied with oil paint are being incompatible against the platino golden background. Through this artistic procedures of defamiliarization, the sense of solitude prevailing the works echoes that human beings’ spirit can only suspend above or ostensibly attach to but not completely conform to the materialistic sublime.

The uncanny sense of estrangement hinted in Tian’s elaboration in painting depicts a rigorous coincidence with the everyday. These forms are intrinsically imprinted with Tian’s philosophy and her embrace of the integration of life experience and art. Perceiving the golden world as an incarnation of the real world, she devised a method to translate personal sensation and memory into the encrypting of the humble, so that established her distinctive painting methodology. The coded metaphoric state of the ‘things’ thereby manifests an intense mash-up and the sophisticated transformation of the painter’s sentiment, life experience, painting process and the everyday objects.

Wang Meng (Curator and Art Critic)