“The objects of reality dont exist just as they are” (André Breton, Le chateau étoilé).

                                                                                                                                             Evelyn Pschak 

    There are hardly any contemporary painters, other than Tianbing Li who know how to play this much with our perception. We are tempted to say that he has discovered a personal art of rendering the trompe –l'oeil . He intrigues us with seductive colours and forms, presents us with a promising world of security and safety, gives us an apparently easy access to an innocent and consolatory work of art – and still we are deceived!

    These graceful decors in pink and turquoise, these flowered branches that voluptuously fold under their youthful weight, these birds and insects that hum along, are nothing but illusionary images. Looking at them from a closer angle, the idyll of origins appears to be charged with elements of decadence. The would be petals are revealed as flesh in decomposition, morbid scenes take their seat in the chirping past, everywhere the evil and the ugly awaits. The scenery that enchanted us at the first sight was nothing but a dark magical trick. A Saprogenic enchantment.

    Tianbing Li surprises us. Hardly do we think that we've found a category for his work than he leaves behind him a state of affairs where we, the spectators find ourselves once again, to attain another level of creation, returning to the past stages or questioning them.

    Evidently there are also some constant elements in the works of Tianbing. His Chinese origins are reflected in his artwork – perhaps even more than he is aware of. The classical Chinese philosophy of Taoism defines art as a mediator of a mystery: there, where there is no secret, art revamps itself as something beautiful or then as a pure description. We can only capture the reality of the situation by keeping up with the palpitation of the secret. The force of his paintings evoke an essence that we realize intuitively and which sheds light on something that until now was kept buried. The secret, more precisely. Tianbing Li sees beyond the form of things. He succeeds in depicting its inner self and its essence on a canvas.

    Teng Baiye, one of the rare modern Chinese painters of the 20 th century to be famous in the Western countries, said that a Chinese artist did not paint a landscape like it would be seen by most people, but gave it an enamouring atmospheric effect. Similarly for Tianbing Li, a landscape is neither a pure fantasy, nor a mimicked reproduction of what we see around us. This world, decomposed, corresponds to the spirit that the artist nurtures within him: he feels nature within him, invaded by the illness of human parasite. Dead Chinese nature, is at first look, painted as a classical water drawing but when we take a closer look, it is consumed by the ulcers of western civilisation. A fantasy wrapped in a pink sweet which we find in certain ways in Meilleur des mondes (of consumption) where the artist wished to capture the “cruel beauty”. Bodies that stretch out in incompatible opposite directions: pastel war accessories, play toys for children and their aggressive munitions, the perfect anatomy of insects and their monstrous mutations. We are both fascinated and repulsed. Despite him, the spectator gives the painter the power to let him accept this artistic world as accessible and as possible.

    The scenes painted by Tianbing Li arouse a lot of sensitivity – adorned with a biting irony - for their epoch, but also with doubts and fury. He sees the millenniums of Chinese culture in danger. After the “cultural revolution” back home, it is now the spirit of consumption of the west, the lack of historic conscience and the management of a global war that is eating up the Chinese dragon.

    Destruction is not only a pictorial topic in the art work of Tianbing Li,but we find it equally present in his explosive touches and brush strokes and in a surprising post treatment of his paintings. His intention is good here – by this technique, per definitionem , as creator and teacher, he confers an aspect of destruction, even auto-destruction in the painting. Many of his works bring out the notion of subsequent ‘degradation': threads of colours smacked onto a final painting, dirty traces of acidic elements. The work of art, itself, seems to be in a mode of auto-destruction. An old Chinese adage resumes this interdependence between foundation and ravage: “he who doesn't destroy, can never create”.

    The old forces repress all changes. With this destruction in and against his painting, Tianbing Li becomes aware of his own history, of his own inner motivation: to break away from the old, the already established; to discover and dare the offbeat; to lead a life of an artist. His decision to invest his life in paintings after having obtained a diploma from the ‘International Public Relations Institution' at Peking, after which he could have made a successful career in External Political Affairs in China, already proves his motivation to continually evolve, advance – as well as brings out his fear of being immobilised! Perfection for him is simply a glorified form of being “stationary”. Aiming for the maximum, the artist acquires such knowledge that he reaches a stage where eagerness for the same technique, the same motives only signify a variation from an old theme and not an artistic evolution. This new vacuum can only be compensated by the return (or the coming) towards the chaos. A chaos that leads to something new, something unexpected. "I believe in constant silence", proclaims the artist. He is happy that we cannot classify him in any category.

    He masters the techniques of classical water paintings but only to use them for another deception. The new paintings of Tianbing Li show the surprised spectator the Chinese vedute , as though composed by the hands of honourable calligraphers. But it is not the ink. These are black hair, 2 to 3 centimetres thick that create such a perfect illusion on the preparation. Another trompe-l'?il . He uses the same technique for a portrait of Mao and La Cêne of Leonardo de Vinci. Tianbing Li indulges in a transcultural artistic practice that envelops several genres. Aware of his own values, this skilled young man from the South of China, alternates between the east and the west, oscillates between his history and his new feats with easy comfort. An artistic wink, which shows not only the humour of the artist but also his originality, his joy to experiment, his diverse knowledge and his extensive dexterity.

    Tianbing Li knows his job. And he knows the history of art – from another point of view "the more I looked at the oil painting at the Louvre, the more I understood the Chinese painting. There is a comparative comprehension. "This comprehension allows him to exhaust all the possibilities. If he wishes he reacts by a painting rendered in classical ink or in expressionism, or in reality-photo or in surrealism or…there is no end. He will again, in all probabilities, and at several occasions, use his know-how and his knowledge to attract us at several beaten stages, once more and help us open our eyes.

    In any case, style for him is nothing but a formality. Force is more important than form. "The tree is nothing but the transformation of the energy. There is no definitive form", explains the artist. Notably again, the rich Taoist and Buddhist heritages, two religions which give more importance to the process than the substance itself. Submission to the movements, the dynamic interior, the explosive impulsion this how he describes his artistic creation. This notion of disruptive creation disposes also of a tradition found in the West. In his work, L'espace littéraire , the writer Maurice Blanchot, describes the Genesis of the work in the following fashion: "The work is not the amortised unit of rest. It is the intimacy and the violence of opposing movements that will never reconcile and pacify each other, until the work of art remains a work of art."

    To amplify the violence evoked in the painting, Tiabing Li uses his industrial lacquer whose combinations and reactions he can control the on the canvas. They flow with the vehemence of the gestures, following the inspiration. It is in this way that he attains a dimension that goes beyond pure contemplation. He no longer paints the bird, but the essence of all the birds. The flight. The artist doesn't lose himself in the scientific outlook and scrutiny of a botanist. He instinctively recognizes the essence of things. His aesthetic competency also justifies the improbable. The fact of understanding differs greatly here from the purely descriptive action. And it leads us, leads him, through the art work to his own personality "Through the painted form of the tree or the landscape, we see the artist paint his own identity".

    André Breton, in his writings Point du Jour said : “… every thing depends on our power of voluntary hallucination. ” It does not only concern the artist but also the spectator who is asked to exhibit more than just a joyous reception without commitment. Moreover, this also corresponds to a Taoist definition of the contemplation of a work of art: the experience of art is based on the reciprocity between the art work and he who looks at it. The spectator is expected to be active and to identify with the artistic work.

    Tianbing Li wishes that we blossom completely and totally in this voluntary commitment. His huge auto portraits of recent works, painted with ferocious strokes of the brush, are strongly deformed and disturbing and exert a strong force as much towards the artist as to the spectator. Characteristic signs, like the mouth of the artist, multi-dimensionally becomes an initial letter abstract of the entity of the portrait. And thus the artist deforms his own image like a “disfigured figure” just until the point of being misappreciated, in staying however himself without leaving even the least doubt. “In order to be absorbed by the image, you should render a detail so big that finally you can't see anything. The distance is good enough to not be lost. The proximity turns you blind”. We are too close to the painting, without orientation, almost fumbling without distance – without protection.

    Tianbing Li's art incites us to be discerned to perceive our old models as out of fashion and to reject them. Paradoxically the artist leads us to a path of blindness - in order to teach us to see again.

                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               (Translation: Sejal Gupta)

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