Expressing the inner heart, Tang Shu: "Gaze" at life
On June 24, the "Tang Shu: Gaze" exhibition opened at Powerlong Art Museum. The exhibition presents the creative style of artist Tang Shu over the past decade.
Tang Shu was born in Shanghai in 1976. After graduating from the Oil Painting Department of the Art Department of East China Normal University in 2000, he taught at the School of Art and Design of Shanghai University of Technology.
Tang Shu has always insisted on starting from his experience and thinking about life, and creating in a concrete way. His skillful techniques make the objects in his paintings vivid and real, and also make the paintings have a realistic intensity.
The exhibition is divided into three parts. The first part is mainly new works created in the past one or two years, mainly daily flowers, still lifes and natural scenes; the second part is works from 2018 to 2021, including the beach series created during the residency at the Swatch Art Center and the people in the swimming pool and on the beach created before and after, as well as the sea series; and the third part is mainly created around 2013-2015, also natural landscapes and woods.
Although Tang Shu's painting themes and objects are not many, we can still see the changes in the artist's vision, perspective and technique. His works on trees and forests, whether ten years ago or around 2021, focus on the posture of tree branches to support the composition of the entire picture. But the trees in the works ten years ago were either densely packed or grew unrestrainedly against the background of looking up at the sky; while the forests painted in 2021 are bright and comfortable. Even in a dense forest, the artist uses the contrast of light and dark, virtual and real to form a more concise picture, which is more "breathable", like leaving blank space, with the atmosphere of ink painting.
In Tang Shu's recent works, he turns his attention back to the specific and even insignificant objects around him. Through his observation and expression of them, he tells the multiple meanings of reality, thus gradually revealing a constantly changing inner world.
Tang Shu said: "I often find objects that attract my interest in my daily life, record them with the camera or mobile phone I carry with me, and use them as references in my subsequent creations."
The hydrangeas in the exhibited work “Flowers” come from his own small garden. The Christmas tree in “Merry Christmas” is in a corner of the child’s school classroom. After the holidays, no one cares about it, which is very meaningful. Tang Shu’s creation is based on these subtle and sincere observations. The self is made up of life, and these specific scenes and moments in life may be the existence closest to one’s heart.
