Red Gate Gallery

Tan Ping

by Tally Beck

Tan Ping has developed his personal idiom in his introspective abstract painting and woodblock prints. His gestural style recalls the experiments of some of the Abstract Expressionists, but he is not heir to their pompous grandiosity. Tan gives us his enigmatic imagery in a format that invites us to consider it and is careful not to overwhelm his viewer. He also does not insist on two-dimensional reading of his canvas and notes that a viewer’s perception of depth in his work is purely personal and psychological. His recent work demonstrates his experimentation with a more diversified palette. These painterly oases on his monochromatic compositions are successful in balancing intense visual interest with the restrained sobriety that gives his canvases their mystical quality.