Tja ling HU

About

Artworks

CV

Promised Land, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 140 cm

About

The work of Dutch artist, with Chinese roots, Tja Ling Hu ( 1987 ) , can be experienced as a symbiosis between the East and the West. Her drawings and animated films show us how she perceives the world around her as a result of her upbringing, where different cultures meet. In addition her work can be defined as a complex interaction between spirituality and the sensory experience, it contains references to psychoanalyst Gustave Jung, the Asian work ethic and rituals of indigenous peoples. With her images Tja Ling denounces our affection for material goods. As an artist she strives to acquire a new way of knowledge through the use of our senses and emotions. As a result the meaning of her drawings and animated films are deliberately left open. Her drawings are there to be experienced. In the 1970’s her parents fled the terror of Chinese communism and ended up in the Netherlands. After a history of oppression they were enrolled in the capitalist system of their new homeland, which led to overcompensation or overconsumption. After the recovery of communism, China too came into an economic momentum. As a consequence spiritual life and cultural values deteriorated. From her materialistic upbringing and education at the fashion academy, Tja Ling undertook a spiritual journey and tries to draw meaning from the emotional life and the subconscious rather than tangible and rational. Her images are to be seen as a meditation that surpasses language and culture in which the viewer enters through the sensory experience into a world of meaning.