untitled, 2021
Hailing from Yibin City, Sichuan Province, Tian graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1997, with a major in printmaking. Now resident in Beijing, Tian works with the notion of a utopian vision for his great Chinese nation.
Tian Yonghua started out as a photographer but hung his camera on the willows a few years ago. Tian now makes his art on the computer, or better, on a number of computers at the same time. For the great works of art that he makes, a lot of computing power is needed.
He talks of paradox, for example of passionate blood uniting China, yet the population is possessed by hopeless devotion, of material; of giants and heroes, though heroes fade and slogans dry up. Essentially he's picking at the deepest questions, those that great artists pine to answer, or at least relishes the process of trying to.