吴天宁 Tianning Wu

Lady Shalott's Dream (2017)

Taken John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott (1888) to a dystopic planet, a painting from my *iPainting* series, the "canvas" is borrowed from various environmental photographs, sometimes even a corner of the world, a physical space humanity has so far reached in the universe, or even screenshots from virtual spaces like video games. Onto these backdrops, I paint familiar objects or images, such as old master paintings, iconic photographs, historical events, or scenes from everyday life. As the renowned American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein once said, "I use some familiar subjects, reorganize their forms, and make them eternal." The world is a coexistence of time and space. Familiar objects appearing in unfamiliar settings create a sense of history frozen at a suffocatingly absurd moment. After experiencing the turbulence of history—like riding a roller coaster—the resulting imagery conveys both the confusion that follows profound wisdom and the loneliness that comes after a moment of celebration. Is this a dream, an illusion, or reality? Who knows? History has always repeated itself, and the evolution of the universe remains even harder to grasp.

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About the artist:

Born in 1965 in Sichuan China, obtained his BFA in oil painting from the prestigious Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. He has been drawing digitally on the first smart iphone since 2009. Applying and combining oil painting techniques with digital tools.