Amy Tang Wing-yin: The Form of Landscape

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Amy Tang Wing-yin’s latest solo exhibition “The Form of Landscape” will debut over 30 seminal works of the artist created from 2017 to the present, representing Tang’s ongoing experiments in painting technique while triggering doubts between abstract visual language and narrativity.

Within Tang’s creation, one might view it only as a series of arrangements as well as different associations of shapes, however, the visual communications from these shapes are more than that. Whilst they might only appear as unconventional initially, these shapes are gradually synthesised together by the artist herself, into one coherent yet abstract landscape that is filled with originality. Landscape painting is a category of creation with a history that harkens back to as long as there were humans. It stems from the observation and appreciation of a space which is primitive and non-artificial, and by an observer from a first person’s point of view.

​Each artist of every era and every culture have had their own understanding and ways of expressing how they interpret their own individual observations of outside objects, as well as their ways of contemplating and looking at the world around them, as they make sense and note of the ways of nature. The built-up experience of all these artists who have come before is what has shaped the ideas and concept of what today’s culture think of ‘Nature’. Humans are now being detached as an outside agent within nature rather than being a part of nature, along with it, the understanding of nature by society is now being dictated by the mass media, changes in digital technologies and enhancement as well as their resultant effects on education. This have created ‘landscapes’ that are more standardised, and more artificial than they have been before. Moving on from landscape paintings to the creation of modern abstract paintings, Tang believes that the definition of ‘Landscape’ and ‘Scenery’ does not need to be something which was predefined by those whose shoulders we stand on, but neither, does it need to be something which follows strictly what the mainstream artistic culture of today have determined them to be. The possibilities of ‘Landscape’ and ‘Scenery’ as categories of painting can be much broader, by breaking these fixed images of what they ‘should’ be through the medium of the abstract. In terms of dealing with the conceptualisation of the image, the figurative ‘Landscape’ is expressed by stripping away all except the essence, the remaining metaphysical image thus what liberates the paintings from that stoic image of what traditional figurative landscape painting ‘should’ be, allowing the observer to be guided by the painting itself and brought to wherever their imagination will take them. They could perceive the painting as like velvet for instance, or as solid rock, or like lakes, and perhaps like wind; The painting may also be seen as playful, or light-hearted, or even fantastic; yet, it could also be viewed as solemn, as sharp and striking, or even alarming, and so on. The comprehension of the vast diversity in which each individual’s visual experience can have, is what allows artists to deviate from the mainstream consensus, exploring those perception and senses which have yet to be explored, as the artist wanders through this flexible and pliable realm of the mind. To counteract this encroachment of uniformity, in an act of defiance, Tang is attempting to provide a safe space within the realms of creativity, to allow a place for viewers to perceive these ‘wild’ and ‘organic’ abstract landscapes for themselves, thus, allowing the possibilities and diversities of the abstract to be able to grow and spread amongst the minds of people once more.

The Studio in the countryside Kwu Tung keeps inspiring Tang’s Artworks. Surrounded by the garden of the studio, different forms of plants suggest the possibilities of abstract visual elements in her paintings. Such as the willows from Kyoto, round-shape lotus leaves, native rhododendrons… Simplified into abstract language, it can be used to translate into another interpretation of the landscape.

Within the process of translating the landscape into abstract language, the artist attempts to insert the tension which acts upon an object to within the painting itself, creating an abstract scenery where images interweave with one another, where they float and sway, and other times they fall, breakup and stretch. Bursting forth from these incredible yet indescribable moments, is an avant-garde power, one which could communicate those which are beyond the means of ordinary languages and systems. This, is precisely what Tang cares about, how viewers question themselves as they perceive the abstract landscape and scenery created by the artist, and in turn, the questions which the “kitsch sceneries” contained within and shaped by society, might inspire. Whence, the viewers’ personal imaginations are freed from their pre-conceived notion by the order of what landscape paintings should be, and be allowed to fully immerse themselves within the painting, and re-examine where their ‘selves’ sits within nature.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER