Tang Maohong: Simplified

ShanghART Singapore is delighted to present Simplified, a solo exhibition by the
Chinese artist Tang Maohong, opening on 16 May 2026 at 4pm. This exhibition brings
together a selection of the artist’s latest paintings, developed extensively over the past
year following his relocation to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It also marks his return to
Singapore after his 2019 solo exhibition, and twenty years since his participation in the
first Singapore Biennale.

Tang’s new body of work reflects a significant development in his practice, centered
around explorations into the process of painting, and its relationship with the result.
The act of painting typically results in two outcomes – the image on the canvas and the
mixed colours on the palette. The works stem from the approach of mixing colours
directly on the painting surface instead of using a palette. This simple gesture
collapses two planes into one, creating a mutually-influencing relationship within the
same pictorial space.

Originating from a period of constraint, this approach has been refined over the past
year into a more distilled visual language. Tang pares down his compositions to focus
on the relationship between the intended image and the residual colour. Deceptively
simple, the underlying tension is withheld from the apparent harmonious coexistence
of the two elements, experienced only upon prolonged inspection.

Tang’s practice has consistently engaged with the nature of images and how we
perceive them. He initially opted to work with animation for its ability to explore the
instability of images through time. Forms derived from the real world would morph,
dissolve, and reassemble, remaining familiar yet resistant to fixed interpretations.
Over time, this temporal process became increasingly condensed, leading him back to
painting. What once unfolded sequentially is now internalised, with shifts and
transformations embedded within a single, suspended surface.

Operating between abstraction and figuration across different mediums, Tang’s works
often resist immediate recognition. His forms appear familiar yet elusive, inviting
sustained attention rather than instant interpretation. At the core of his practice is an
ongoing inquiry into perception – how images are formed, how meaning emerges,
and how both remain inherently unstable.

Across two decades, Tang has continued to refine and distill his approach, pursuing
the same fundamental questions with increasing precision. This presentation marks a
pivotal moment in that trajectory. The new paintings bring together image, material,
and structure into a tightly resolved yet open-ended condition, where process and
result are held in balance. For Tang, painting is not a means of searching for fixed
answers, but a reciprocal process in which meaning emerges from the act of painting
itself.