What’s real anymore in a world where AI can generate artwork, imitate voices and create fake videos? How has the over-saturation of content changed how we see the world and ourselves? These are two key concepts in Tong Wu’s surreal paintings that incorporate ancient myths, pop culture, and a lot more.
Tong Wu’s artistic journey began in China, shaped by a culture that values discipline, tradition, and self-awareness – principles that still form the foundation of his art. However, after moving to London, his understanding of identity expanded, changing the nature of his work bringing together Eastern and Western philosophy, aesthetics and mythology – two cultures channelled through one artist, mixing tradition with the modern world.
By weaving these influences together, Wu offers his perspective on the complexities of navigating what’s real and what’s not. In his highly skilled paintings, he creates visual metaphors that reflect the intersection of personal experience and cultural pressures, asking us where we fit in this world.
Wu’s early works used the recurring motifs of video cameras and film elements. Through these images, he asked, “What if the world were, in essence, a giant studio?”. This idea has been challenged in films such as The Matrix and The Truman Show, and given current technological advancements, it’s a topic that keeps recurring in contemporary discussions.
We see this in his “Revalue each images” series where a scene unfolds and the camera crew and lighting are all visible to us – taking us behind the scenes. While it’s obviously a set, it asks us to question whether everything we see in the real world is orchestrated and whether we’re just seeing what others want us to see.
He incorporates natural elements such as flowers, grass, rivers, and palm fronds but they are painted in rich vibrant colours that make them look candy-like and surreal. In a time when many of us see nature through screens such as phones and televisions, it asks whether our view of the natural world, which is slowly being destroyed, is even real.
Wu’s exposure to Western teachings allowed him to incorporate Eastern and Western influences into his works, as we see in ‘Fascinating Post-modern Violence’. The foreground may seem contemporary but on the sea, we can see Noah’s Ark as a stand-in for whether we’ll need rescuing from our ecological destruction of the planet. The modern weapon in the foreground, associated with current video games, contrasts with the muskets in the recreation of Francisco Goya’s ‘The Third of May 1808’ painting in the background – contemporary culture meets art history.
Video games are another source of inspiration for Wu’s paintings as they also imagine different worlds and the hyper-saturated worlds they present have similarities to Wu’s paintings. We see this in ‘a letter for me’ where distant tunnels and paths lead deeper into the landscape, as if inviting the viewer to explore the unrevealed. It’s like Alice wandering down the rabbit hole or possibly an entryway to the next level of a game.
We’re over-saturated with media and everyone curates what they see through their phones – living in separate worlds. Tong Wu picks from all these worlds and pieces them together into detailed surreal paintings that invite us into the world he’s curated and to see ourselves in them. He takes ideas from myths, philosophies, literature, and science-fiction films – and he will continue to draw from new sources. It means his practice will keep on incorporating diverse references that meld ancient myths with pop culture, and we look forward to seeing what comes next.
More information on Tong Wu and his artworks may be found on his Instagram.
All images copyright Tong Wu. Second image from the ‘Revalue each images’ series, Acrylic on paper, 2022. Third image ‘Fascinating postmodern violence.’, Oil on canvas, 2023.
