A Celebration of Art - Pascal Tao’s Solo Show “Performance of Color •Abstract of Color” was unveiled on the ground floor of the 2nd Exhibition Hall in the Today Art Museum, at 3pm on November 17, 2012. The Opening was presided over by Gao Peng, Deputy Director of the Today Art Museum, participating guests including: Chen Rong, President of Ogilvy One China, Chen Dili, a Chinese senior musician and director of multimedia art, Dr. Sun Jie, President of the Health Resource in the Chinese Community in San Francisco, Xie Shuzhen, Director of the Today Art Museum, as well as the artist himself.

Initially, Ms. Xie Suzhen made an opening speech, and thanked everyone present on the opening evening, as well as Pascal Tao for holding his solo exhibition at the Today Art Museum. Ms. Xie said she was very interested in the series “Abstract of Color”, and also hoped to discuss further his abstract ideas in this series of works, and revealed that there would be a large-scale painting produced by Pascal at a site on show on the last day. Pascal Tao said he had mixed feelings about his first solo exhibition in China for 32 years, although he has held a lot of exhibitions around the world. He hoped to share and communicate his ideas with others through his paintings. Ms. Chen Jing, curator, said the reason why she named the exhibition “A Celebration of Art”, was that when she first met Pascal Tao, she had deeply understood his idea: the life of Pascal Tao was reflected in color. Color was a language for his own soul to have a dialogue with the world.

The 22 pieces of the oil painting series “Abstract of Color” and 3 pieces of gouache, represented the artist’s experience of studying and exploring the style of Color Abstraction from 2002. Some square color patches were added impromptu onto some paintings, depicting the enlarged details, as if a window between heaven and earth, leading audiences unconsciously into a colorful world. He had this idea when his friends read the details of his painting by using magnifiers.

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Pascal Tao’s grandmother was a painter, and his mother painted and collected lots of albums by Impressionist painters, which profoundly gave young Pascal an artistic edification. In order to deal with traditional Chinese culture and his abstract use of color in an international style, he had two teachers, he said, “There are two art albums always on my bedside, one is Lin Fengmian’s, and the other is Huang Binhong’s. I am deeply enlightened by Lin Fengmian’s exploration of Western culture, while Huang Binhong gives me more inspiration, whose works are renowned to be extremely complicated: the color of ink and wash is criss-crossed, rich and fluctuating, and I used this method to perform my abstract of color, but made color as my protagonist, color under color, the paintings are so complicated that the color blocks in my paintings are regarded as “passwords” to be found by many people.”

The exhibition will last until November 25, 2012. After that, Pascal Tao will have a world tour, different styles of different exhibitions, and we are looking forward to the completely pure abstraction in his next solo exhibition.

About the artist

Born from an artistic family, young Pascal studied painting with his grandmother, and taken as a pupil by Wu Zuoren at the age of 14, and later he was taught by many masters, such as Han Yu, A Ju, Tie Yang and Huang Qi. He is the founder of color abstractionism.

Collections

The Shore was collected by the Public Library of Denver City, USA. The Red Forest was collected by the California Academy of Sciences, USA. Eagle was in the collection of the Honorable Willie Brown, Major of San Francisco, USA. The Morning Wind was in the collection of Richard A Stephens, the former President of the Academy of Art of San Francisco, USA. The Ranch was in the collection of Peter Wilson, former Governor of California, USA. Spring was in the collection of Master Xing Yu, China. Harbor was collected by Jerry Bush, Governor of Florida, USA.

CV

1980 - Picked by the Chinese government to study in the Academy of Art College in San Francisco for his MFA.

1986- Showcased by the prestigious P&G Art Gallery, the first person to do so.

1982- From 1982 Pascal has held about 52 exhibitions. His art has been featured in many auctions, charity functions, and academic lectures. He has published three portfolios.

1997- Joined as a member of Shanghai’s first World Expo.

1999-2002 Has travelled European and American Art Museums.

2002-Present He has studied on the style of Color Abstractionism, breathing fresh air into the stagnant world of art.

 Translated by Chen Peihua and Edited by Sue Wang