Tong Gallery+Projects is honoured to announce that it will participate in the ART CHENGDU International Contemporary Art Expo from April 28 to May 2, 2019, presenting the works of the following five artists:

Itsuki Kaito (b. 1993, Japan)

Li Manjin (b. 1981, China)

Liu Zhixing (b. 1991, China)

Pan Wangshu (b. 1987, China)

Peng Lu (b. 1992, China)

We look forward to your time to visit booth C21.☕️

Peng Lu, born in Changsha, Hunan Province in 1992, graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2016 with a bachelor's degree. Now I work and live in Beijing. 

"For me, my work is to establish the order of the individual's inner world, which is a confrontation with the noisy environment of reality. Every element of the work reflects an experience or a plot that actually happens in reality. I don't pursue direct emotional catharsis, but rationally decompose emotions and emotions, and then precipitate them in proportion. No matter how absurd the combination is, I try to make it stable and reasonable in the world built by my work.

Li Manjin, born in Fujian in 1981, graduated from Fujian Normal University in 2005. 

"I like to describe myself and the things around me with a self-reflective attitude. TAs play different roles with the needs of various feelings. There was a force that drove me to devote all the enthusiasm of life into the canvas. I like the painting state where the tip of the pen and the heartbeat are combined. I repeatedly shape the object, not to depict a recognisable ID card, but to approach the real fullness through the continuous roundabout writing.

Liu Zhixing, born in Yunnan, China in 1991. Graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2003, he obtained the National Modelling Diploma of the Academy of Fine Arts in Nantes, France, and was commended by the jury in 2017. So far, he has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nantes, France. 

"The animals, characters or plants in my paintings are like adjectives and carriers of certain feelings. For example, there is no flowing air staying in the treetops at night; the state of a person when it is empty; the lustre reflected when the light falls on the hair; the state of people who are naive like animals, forgotten and waiting to be rediscovered, etc. These objects are some metaphors. They are like a switch in daily details, mobilising my feelings, and conveying an indefinable and undefined state between ambiguity and clarity in a poetic, quiet and unobtentated way. 

Pearl is like those abstract feelings. It has a hazy lustre and a virtual and real projection of the surrounding environment. It can't be seen and can't be understood. It is so weird that it appears in a seemingly perfect position, just like breathing and breathing."

"The painting of acrylic on canvas is a painting attempt and transformation of my thinking about the boundaries and possibilities of sculpture. Traditional sculpture is made by specific materials in three-dimensional space, and most of the meaning of traditional sculpture lies in permanence. However, on the basis of space, the fourth dimension - time, the meaning and nature of sculpture will change. Unlike classical sculpture's pursuit of perseverance, "flashing", "life and death" and "flash in the time" can also exist as the state of sculpture. When the base of the classical sculpture in the museum or the protective cover of the specimen in the specimen exhibition hall is also regarded as as important as the sculpture displayed through them, they can truly become a part of the sculpture. I pulled out the base and protective cover of the classical sculpture separately. Their form and material represent the relative eternity of the sculpture, and the soap bubble that just falls on it is the absolute moment of the sculpture. This idealised moment is condensed in the picture, which is not only the eternity of sculpture, but also the instantaneous nature of sculpture. 

The title of the work Éter-instant is a new word I created by two French words éternel (eternal) and instant (instantaneous), that is, the ideal state of the sculpture's relative eternity and absolute moment.

Pan Wangshu was born in Hangzhou in 1987. In 2013, he graduated from the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree in the Department of Visual Communication Design. Now living in Hangzhou. 

"My current creative theme mainly focusses on the analysis and research of "relationships". Explore the relationship with the people around you from the cognition of the relationship, and the relationship between other people. The following works will talk more about a complex relationship between parents and children, such as the cage of the native family. The big framework is a community, and these are the networks of relationships between families, parents and friends that exist in it. This kind of network is very common in everyone's relationship, very close and worth thinking about. This forms the core of this community culture. In the form of creation, combined with the collection of amateur characters for re-creation, the source of the image of the community is closer to the absurd truth.

Itsuki Kaito was born in Sapporo, Japan in 1993; graduated from Tohoku University of Art and Design (TUDA) with a bachelor's degree in oil painting in 2016; in 2017, he was admitted to Kyoto Municipal University of the Arts (KCUA) with a master's degree in oil painting.  

"I want to show two groups of characters in my paintings, which are the main characters in my creation. Men who look weird and perverted, and women who feel like "queen". They look very different, but there are also many things they share, which also form a part of me. I think it's like my own self-portrait. 

Poor men tie up their bodies with nylon belts, like M in sadomasochism, and then connect themselves to various things. He also seems to have a desire to arouse the attention of others. These seemingly self-consolation behaviours are meaningless and worthless to others. Although he destroyed his sense of morality and dignity, there was also a charm in it. However, I never feel that these self-comforting "worthless behaviours" are enough, because I believe that human civilisation and intelligence can be improved and enriched in such things.

"On the other hand, the woman I created is a fantasy god of destruction from the earth. Unlike men, she uses everything that binds her hands and feet to destroy the earth wantonly. These inspirations come from the metaphors of various mysterious legends for world mechanisms. For example, it is said that Hainuway was born from the flowers of the coconut tree. She can produce valuable items from faeces, such as beautiful dishes, swords and other magical and valuable things. This made her family rich, but it attracted jealousy, and the men killed her on a festival night. Her adoptive father dug up her body and buried it everywhere in the village. Her body has produced a variety of different taro, which has become an important food in Indonesia. 

There are many other similar legends circulating in Asia and Oceania. There is an explanation that human civilisation breaks through the earth and reclaims farmland, but it can never repay the wisdom obtained from nature. Therefore, both (gender) characters have both sides of 'slave' and 'queen', which constitutes my idea. Excerpted from Creators Weekly Star 009 "Artist from the New Era, There is no fixed thinking in his mind", author: Lu Ran.)