MEDIA RELEASE FOR LIQIN TAN @ OFFTHEMAPGALLERY
Director & curator: Antonia Lancaster

‘RAWHIDE ANIMATION ‘
by LIQIN TAN

Opening Reception, Saturday, April 2nd, 2 - 5pm (artist present)
Show runs from April 2nd - April 23rd, 2005
80 Spadina Avenue, 5th floor, Toronto, Canada M5V 2J4
Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 5pm

OFFTHEMAPGALLERY invites you to visit the surreal world of digital animation artist LiQin Tan. Our future is reflected in Tan’s synthesized collection of the digital and the primitive. A subverted and disengaged reality is displayed in Tan’s museum of a time yet to come.
Antonia Lancaster, curator, offthemapgallery

LIQIN TAN: 'Digital-Primitive Art' is a multifaceted and reciprocal process - making digital 3D images through primitive technology and materials, and making primitive rawhide/wood-art through digital technology and equipment. My hope is that the ‘digital-primitive art’ can transcend the traditional and modern uses of art elements and can result in integrating digital and primitive values in one manifestation. One-way in which I think about the relationship between the primitive and modern technology can be symbolized as ‘Digital <( (Finite) and Primitive ( (Infinity)’. I would suggest that any modern technology would be changed or replaced; however, the primitive systems of signification retain their significance. As the ideologies and technologies of society change, today’s state-of-the-art technology will be tomorrow’s primitive skills. "Digital-Nature" artwork should unitized human spirit, natural beauty, and digital-prettiness created through digital 3D simulation. Humans have to free their minds and spirit from what they are used to before they can use the complete capability of digital space to create and appreciate digital nature. In a variety of ways, they are determining digital space in the form of the 3D material site that they live in. But digital space is not a material site and intrinsically 3D, as an alternative, digital space is a site for the mind and spirit.
LiQin Tan, visual artist

BIO: Tan’s works of art have been exhibited nationally and internationally in both solo and group shows and have received numerous awards. His exhibitions have been displayed at the Lancaster Museum of Art, Vancouver Art Gallery, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, IDMAA iDEAa Exhibition, London iV04 Digital Art Gallery, Baltimore Gallery International, Rutgers Stedman Art Gallery, Philadelphia Da Vinci Art Alliance, Omaha Period Gallery, Cohasset South Shore Art Center, Noho Gallery New York, Pittsburgh Three Rivers Arts Festival, Singapore Art Museum, William Paterson University Power Art Gallery, Centre D’Art Contemporaine (Montreal), Concordia University V.A.V. Gallery, Maisons de la Culture (Montreal), Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum, Hunan Provincial Art Museum and National Art Museum in China, amongst others. At the iDEAa digital art exhibition in Orlando, these series artwork have been awarded “Best of Show” by the International Digital Media and Arts Association, the Award of Excellence by International Digital IV, Period Gallery at Lincoln, NE, a Gold medal from “Da Vinci Art Alliance Members’ Annual Exhibition” in Philadelphia, the Award of Excellence by Global Media Competition, Baltimore Gallery International, and Second Place by International Digital Art Competition, Los Angles Center of Digital Art.

For further information contact Antonia at:
Tel: 416 642 2113 or 1 877 860 0019
email: info@offthemapgallery.com
web: www.offthemapgallery.com