HOCK TEE TAN
London, England
Malaysian born Hock Tee Tan is a leading contemporary figurative painter with collectors across Europe and America. From a young age Tan was a talented drawer and despite expectations to join the family business, Tan was supported to pursue his passion at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore at 18. At 22, he was granted a place at West Surrey College of Art to study Graphic design, gaining a First. Following a successful 30 year career in Advertising, in 2003 Tan returned to his passion focusing full time on his art.
For over a decade Tan has focused on depicting the female form, creating a diverse range of work that documents the body through the composition of colour. By working with different mediums he is able to create visually diverse works of art. Oil paintings take form in very subtle blocks of colour that create realistic portrayals, where as his abstract work with Chinese Ink and Oil Pastel uses strong black lines and bold strokes of colour to provide the viewer with hints and clues that requires their minds eye to finalise his work. His highly stylised Oil Pastel pieces, again abstract but with a greater emphasis on the economy of line, has a clear influence from his past career as a Graphic Designer. Further abstracted still are his Chinese Ink paintings, that draw on Tan's memory of practicing calligraphy as a child, transforming the female form into Chinese Character-esque images.
Tan also works in watercolour creating intensely-coloured paper-filling images, if it weren't for the elegance of the female form depicted you would question if they were produced by the same hand. Tan also is a talented sculpture, again physically forming the female figure.