Tokyo Gallery + BTAP are pleased to announce the opening of artist Ai An’s solo exhibition Tale on April 25, 2015. Ai An’s third ever solo exhibition will include 20 new tempera works that were all created this year.

Born in 1963 in Liaoning, China, Ai An spent ten years of his career in the military. In the 1980s, he tested into the Central Academy of Fine Art, oil painting department. By 1990, he had graduated from CAFA’s Graphic Novel (Fine Art) Department, and started his painting career. For a while after this, he engaged with work in design, but after drifting away from pure fine art creation, he was bestowed with a new realization about art, broadening his visions as an artist. This exhibition includes brand new works that were created since his last solo exhibition, and shows an increasingly matured body of work.

The majority of Ai An’s works use tempera paint. Each of the artworks in this exhibition are from a relatively new mode of painting that starkly contrasts that which he has used in the past. Furthermore, it is a style of painting that the artist unintentionally started to use. In comparison to his earlier works that display a more melancholic and withdrawn style, his works from this year are ever more bright and tranquil. They take a step back to offer room for thought and meditation. With deep meaning embedded within, the people, animals, even mountains and architecture that Ai An depicts are full of consciousness, considerably surpassing reality in their profound significance. Tempera is an established medium that was first used by painting masters in classical times, particularly because the medium allowed the artists to express great detail, despite the process being quite slow and complicated. Nevertheless, it was this very process that allowed artists to express more emotion and thought in their work. Ai An’s new paintings allow us to explore, experience and face life from an increasingly intuitive and three dimensional perspective. The scenes within his paintings make us feel that the entirety of the world is just at our side. Sticking closely to personal experiences, it allows us to instantaneously be in a process of organizing and expressing our feelings on life, as if it were existing in a semi-journalistic literary form.

The exhibition’s opening will be held on April 25, 2015 at 3pm.

About the exhibition

Dates: 2015.4.25(Wed) - 5.17(Sun)

Venue: Tokyo Gallery + BTAP

Courtesy of the artist and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP.