Absurdity clashes with drama and tension in the paintings of Chinese artist Tang Dixin

Born in 1982, Tang Dixin is a Hangzhou-born multimedia artist whose creativity seems to know no bounds as he effortlessly crisscrosses between painting, performance art, installation art, and more. Despite his artistic diversity, Tang’s works are united through a similar sense of dramatic apprehension and his love for absurd metaphors. In paintings, he invokes tension through the use of bright, vibrant lines, which slice through slabs of solid colors. Seemingly abstract at first glance, a closer look at his paintings reveals recognizable human forms and hidden layers of emotion. Tang’s painted works feel quite organic with his background as a performance artist, as each painting carries a visual dynamism that makes them feel closer to staged performances rather than static pieces of work.

1982 年出生于杭州的艺术家唐狄鑫，他的创作领域横跨绘画、装置和行为艺术等多种媒介，充满戏剧性的张力，亦充满荒诞的隐喻。野性的张力通过大面积颜色和高亮度的线条轮廓呈现出来，看似具有模糊抽象的含义，实则在描绘具体而现实的躯体和情感，似乎正在通过画面上演一台“虚构表演”。

In earlier years, Tang’s projects as a performance artist often involved putting himself in dangerous situations, such as leaping onto an active train track and hopping back onto the platform right before the train pulls in. Explaining with an impish smile, he tells us, “It’s using fear to stimulate my id.” And though he’s moved on from this risky method of creative expression, Tang’s paintings still adhere to the theme of “mutual destruction” that fascinated him as a performance artist; nowadays, it’s just explored via a different approach. “As a performance artist, it’s me physically conducting a certain act. When I paint, I’ll simply depict someone performing what I might’ve originally done. The message is the same, but it’s interesting to present it in a new way.”

早些年，唐狄鑫也创作行为艺术的作品，他常常会将自己置于十分危险的境地——比如俯身跳下铁轨，再在列车来临前果断跳上站台。他俏皮地说，那是因为“想把心中住的小神仙吓一跳”。相比行为艺术，他的油画亦传达出背后那个“互撕互毁”的过程，他说：“一个是我跳到人群中，另一个我描绘有个人跳进人群。要表达的内容其实也没什么不同，但一点也不想同归。”