Fruit

Art book published on the occasion of Tang Ke’s solo exhibition Fruit: When gazing at an object: I see everything coming along, held at Fu Qiumeng Fine Art from May 4th to July 6th, 2019.

Tang Ke’s latest art practice is intertwined with his continuous observation of his plants and their seasonal changes. For Tang, a long engagement with an object is the pretext of seeing and painting it. His method endows his works with lifelike features as well as an almost otherworldly outlook that seems to transcend the linear flow of time. Tang’s works echo how he described his cultivation and observation of wax gourds. “When gazing at an object, I see everything coming along,” he said, “After observing them [wax gourds] for some time, I approached them in a different way…they transcended the state of being merely plants.” The essay elaborates on these aspects of Tang’s practice and provides a way of reading Tang’s latest paintings of wax gourds in relation to his previous practice.