Pei Tianying

Artist statement

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“One soul is worth the whole universe” (Unamuno,1955). 

As a Melbourne-based Chinese artist, my work is reflexive, looking at the inner influence of people, objects and events. Through feeling and experiencing these relationships and contradictions, I mainly focus on reflecting the abstract expression of my own feelings. As a bystander and participant in COVID-19 and long time lock-down, my works integrate western painting and traditional Chinese painting to speak for my own aesthetic conceptions.  

My concept is to find the balance between people and the environment and between people and animals. Instead of focusing on social relationship or the objects only, I focus more on the relationship between nature, animals and people, finding the perfect balance via invented environmental scenes, the balance idea is also at the centre of Chinese Zen philosophy. Environment and animals are also the reflection of people's inner world, so exploring the relationship between environment and people /animals is discussing people themselves, and everything in the universe ​reflects consciousness. 

The surreal "Utopia" in my mind is given through the poetic nonconcrete description method, to make the neglected emotions or events appear and activate the value of people's strong emotions, to make them resonate and reconcile.