Tong Yanrunan

Tong Yanrunan considers the artistic act as an adventure towards the discovery of the true essence of its subject. The Chinese artist is empowered by a constant desire for getting in touch with the human soul and with nature, giving life to a portrait that is distant from the form but one that (like Giorgio Morandi’s still-life paintings) creates a sort of constantly gratifying relationship borne from apparent simplicity. The subject dwells within the canvas in the essence of non-distinction; every face is vivid and irreplaceable; every image is a new and opulent universe. The painter is not interested in the true story of his characters. By estranging himself from their past, he manages to create a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the subject – real, bare communication. To observe Tong’s portraits means letting oneself go to a calm magnetism, abandoning oneself to the vision of subjects immobilized by the painter’s dynamic brushstrokes, on canvases slightly smaller than the real bust of a person and creating unalterable Forms of Time.