Tianxi is a visual artist who works primarily with photography. His artwork depicts semi-fictional contemporary landscapes, initially captured in reality but modified in various ways. The digital and analogue modification techniques, devised in response to his feelings, map and transform the initial photographs. Manipulated by, among other techniques, heating, burning, carbonizing, soaking, and freezing, new images emerge in the process of destruction. When the camera cannot depict the vision of tearful eyes looking at the sky, a bag filled with saltwater placed over the lens evokes the same effect.
This necessity to develop an unconventional approach arose from Tianxi’s dissatisfaction with mainstream photographic practices and in an attempt to transcend the limitations of straightforward documentation. In his view, photography as art has the potential to address the inexpressible forms of experience that are lost in the directness of the medium. Here, the truth is found in fiction. What has been lost, the invisible and ineffable, is recovered in abstract forms.
The thirty-two pieces in the exhibition have been selected from Tianxi’s various projects made in past ten years: Abdruck (《印痕》), Escaping Yellowstone (《逃离黄石公园》), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (《再见，谢谢所有的鱼》) , Wasted, and a project in northeastern China ongoing since 2019. Tianxi lived in Minnesota, the United States from 2011 to 2019. He returned to China in early 2019. Moving between places gave him a fresh outlook on modern society and the lives of individuals. These works being presented in his first solo show in China are the crystallization of his feelings, thoughts and questions along the way.
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Enter Tomorrow - Wang Tianxi
AMASS GALLERY
Qinhuai qu, Nanli lishi wenhua Xiuxian Jiequ, N°6 39#, Nanjing (China)
Dates: 17 Sept 2022 - 16 March 2023
