Art in capitals gallery is hosting a solo exhibition for Spanish artist Juan Antonio Tinte, who has based his works on one of the most renowned novels in the literary history of China – Dream of the Red Chamber. Having moved and inspired by this Chinese masterpiece, Tinte has created a series of paintings to illustrate his own understanding and interpretation of the story.
To Juan Antonio Tinte, having one’s past experience evoked is one of the most significant characteristics portrayed in most of his representations. Medieval architectures, textiles and women of melodic movements are the main themes of the Spanish artist. Techniques of Medieval period such as the use of gold leaf, a medium typical of this time, can be often seen in his art work.
When chances brought Tinte the opportunity to reading the classical Chinese literature Dream of the Red Chamber, he found himself in a position where he was greatly mesmerized by the story and its characters. To fulfill the artist’s admiration for the novel, Tinte created a series of paintings that depicts scenes of the story based on his own interpretations, as well as his Spanish cultural heritage.
In one of the paintings Burying the Fading Flowers, Tinte relates his vision of a series of earthly matters to a scene that he has read and envisioned in Dream of the Red Chamber. In the chapter, Daiyu, an important character in the novel, was looking at the decaying flowers and feeling melancholy for her own youth and beauty that were slowly fading away, much like that of the life of a flower. To portray the undefining sadness of time, immortality and solitude, and to connect audience‘s emotions to his work, Tinte shows in the painting a vast space in which the foreground appears invisible, leaving the representational headless character in a void that is neither attached to her past nor leading her to anything that suggests us as audience a life to yearn for.
Mirror of Temptation introduces an optical play in Tinte’s works . In the story, Jia Rui, a character known for his lack of principle, was warned by the Taoist priests not to look into the Mirror of Temptation, or else his life would be at stake. A heavy-bottomed figure is shown gesturing in front of the mirror; the character’s mass ascending gradually from its top to the bottom, escorting speculators‘ eyes to travel through the canvas. As for many viewers, their visions are eventually subjected to fix on the golden mirror that is never to be looked at. Tinte’s manipulation of lines, shapes and colors helps his audience to look at every detail in his painting as each individual and as a whole. In the case of this specific painting, Tinte has succeeded in drawing our eyes to look at the cursed and tabooed object, because no way can the audience escape the sight of the alluring golden entity that represents the Mirror of Temptation.
Juan Antonio Tinte has gained himself a great number of awards for his works that have been displayed in a lot of important exhibitions among others. As an erudite storyteller, as well as an art critic, a University professor, and not to mention a recognized artist, Tinte captivates his audience by elaborating his stories from their cultural origin, and leading the audience to a place where their emotions can be expressed. All these emotions that Tinte depicts have already been traveling around the world in the form of a canvas, and have now finally made its way into China.
ART in capitals gallery is honored to host the artist’s exhibition, one that provides us with an opportunity to observe the confluence of oriental and western civilizations, as well as the development of contemporary art to its greatest extent.
