Tang Shiyao

In my recent creations, I often reflect on the relationship between landscapes and the state of mind. During a reading, I came across a line of poetry in the inscription of a painting by Shen Zhou — "Sometimes in this realm." These five simple words quietly fell into my heart, yet they stirred deep echoes, gradually becoming an important theme in my recent works.

​

“有” (You) can be understood as the state of existence, “时” (Shi) refers to time, “在” (Zai) means the place of existence, and “此境” (Ci Jing) points to a specific or abstract space. This sentence triggered an indescribable emotion in me, leading me to recall my experiences when climbing mountains and observing landscapes. Its meaning might be: existence itself is a constantly changing state, filled with uncertainty. Uncertain time, uncertain space, uncertain states, and uncertain existence. This uncertainty forms a flowing order: time flows, space flows, states flow, and existence flows.

​

My works have always focused on landscapes, with the actions of "walking, observing, and thinking" running through my creations. Most of them are landscapes I encountered during my wanderings, which moved me deeply. It was at those moments that I often felt a sense of "coexistence" with the world. I record the landscape in motion, reconstructing my inner landscape through these records. I believe that walking is something special; it means moving through one’s own power to experience the world. These memorable landscapes become imprinted in my body as memories.

​

When I reflect on this experience, I believe it represents an intuitive "feeling of being alive," the emotion of truly existing in this moment and place. This feeling is both an immediate awareness of the state of life and a state of interaction between the individual and the environment. Since last year, I have started mountain climbing, which has made me appreciate the charm of this way of observing. When a person stays in one place to observe, what they see is limited. But by observing while in motion, one becomes more aware of their closer relationship with the surrounding things. When crossing over mountains and looking down from a high place, one can see more landscapes, the sky feels closer, and thinking expands as well.

​

For me, “wandering” is both a way and a state. In the process of “wandering,” I found resonance with landscape painters. The worldview and way of seeing in landscape painting gave me strong inspiration. In landscapes, the characteristic of "wandering" also exists: it is a way of experiencing the world through the senses, a purposeless, undifferentiated state where the subject and the object are one. I am the observer of the landscape, and I also become a part of the landscape.

Her work primarily uses oil painting as the medium, focusing on the experience and essence of "observation" and using "landscape" as a way to connect the individual with the world. These landscapes are not representations of geographical space but visual expressions of inner experience. In the construction of the images, she often creates an "ideal scene" that exists between reality and fiction, using blurred boundaries, shifting perspectives, a sense of moist air, and the de-characterization of figures. This is not only a state of perception but also a way of being. "For me, painting is an experiential output," she describes her work. In the context of the current environment, where information and images are excessively saturated, Tang Shiyao attempts to find a path of connection with reality within the realm of fiction. Influenced by the spirit of Chinese classical landscape painting, which embraces both "wandering and dwelling," she sees "wandering" as a posture of coexisting with the world, and also as a continuously generating method of observation. Her works invite the viewer to slow down and, in contemplation, ask: What are we seeing? Why do we look?