Guo-Liang Tan

  • Guo-Liang Tan (b. 1980, Singapore) is a visual artist working primarily in the field of painting, from which works in...

    Guo-Liang Tan (b. 1980, Singapore) is a visual artist working primarily in the field of painting, from which works in other mediums such as text, collage and video sometimes emerge. In his work, surfaces, painterly or otherwise, become a space for performing gestures of affect and conjuring a haunting that converses with the ghosts of abstraction. Gaps and overlaps, traces and fragmentation feature prominently in Tan's making process. He is interested in how this frames and orientates our sense of time, body and memory. 

  • 'I have been making paintings with this aeronautical fabric for some time now. More recently, I have also been experimenting...

    "I have been making paintings with this aeronautical fabric for some time now. More recently, I have also been experimenting with a new technique: using found synthetic textiles to create mono-printed impressions. Fragments of this fabric are unwoven, layered and sometimes erased to form abstract compositions that unfold slowly during the process of making. I'm increasingly playing with the qualities of translucency and the affect of material surfaces."

     

    — Guo-Liang Tan

    • Guo-Liang Tan Untitled (Nighthawk), 2020 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 90 x 75 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Untitled (Nighthawk), 2020
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      90 x 75 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Amphibian Wisps, 2020 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 150 x 130 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Amphibian Wisps, 2020
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      150 x 130 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Light Frays I, 2019 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 121.1 x 100.6 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Light Frays I, 2019
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      121.1 x 100.6 cm
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  • Installation view: 'Ghost Screen' (2017) at Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, 'Reformations' (2019) at NTU ADM Gallery, Singapore, 'Ethereal Machines' (2018) at Ota Fine Arts, Shanghai

     

    Instead of direct mark-making, paint is thinned down and allowed to flow across the surface of stretched fabric, creating a variety of stains and marks which mirror actions that can be performed on the fabric itself - fold, tear, cut, sew, drape, stretch and so on. Colours bleed and converge at their edges while voids punctuate the pictorial plane to reveal the underlying space, reversing the relationship between surface and support. In these instances, the work collapses the concrete and the abstract, the optical and the haptic into a singular surface that pushes and pulls.

    • Guo-Liang Tan Cherry Plumes, 2019 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 163 x 138 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Cherry Plumes, 2019
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      163 x 138 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Untitled (Retrograde), 2019 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 110 x 90 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Untitled (Retrograde), 2019
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      110 x 90 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Body Memory, 2018 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 150.3 x 130.2 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Body Memory, 2018
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      150.3 x 130.2 cm
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  • "While they might appear to be painterly at first glance, these works also borrow tropes and processes from printmaking and collage. I'm interested to explore how these different approaches towards the two dimensional can play off each other and to think more deeply on what it means to 'compose'." 

     

    — Guo-Liang Tan

    • Guo-Liang Tan Her Master's Voice, 2015 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 144 x 121 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Her Master's Voice, 2015
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      144 x 121 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Broken Kisses, 2015 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 50 x 40.8 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Broken Kisses, 2015
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      50 x 40.8 cm
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    • Guo-Liang Tan Untitled (Cassiopeia) , 2015 Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood 151 x 131 cm
      Guo-Liang Tan
      Untitled (Cassiopeia) , 2015
      Acrylic on aeronautical fabric, wood
      151 x 131 cm
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  • About the artist

    Tan completed his BA in Fine Art & Critical Studies at Goldsmiths College, London and his MFA at Glasgow School of Art. He was also a guest student at The Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and an artist-in-residence at the NTU Centre of Contemporary Art. He is a recipient of Singapore National Arts Council Scholarship, the Antje und Jürgen Conzelmann Preis for painting and a finalist in the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. His work has been exhibited and collected in Asia and Europe. Past and recent exhibitions include 'Play Dead' (2012) at Space Cottonseed, Singapore, 'The Trouble With Painting Today' (2014) at Pump House Gallery, London, 'Ghost Screen' (2017) at Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, 'A Different Way Of (Thinking About) Painting?' (2017) at Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarta, 'Ethereal Machines' (2018) at Ota Fine Arts, Shanghai, 'DEPTHS: Others, Lands, Selves' (2018) at Elevation Laos, Vientiane, and 'Reformations' (2019) at NTU ADM Gallery, Singapore.