Tan Rui Rong
BORN: 1963
HOMETOWN: GUIYANG, CHINA
LIVES AND WORKS: SINGAPORE
Born 1963 in Guiyang, China, Mr. Tan Rui Rong has lived in Singapore for 25 years. He is currently the editor-in-chief of Singapore’s “源” Magazine, a mainstream Chinese language magazine in Singapore, a lecturer with the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), a committee member of the Federation of Arts Societies (Singapore) and the Singapore Literature Society, the vice chairman of Arts Theatre of Singapore Ltd, a judge for several national writing competitions including the “Singapore Tertiary Chinese Literature Awards” and the “Annual Outstanding Literary Award”, as well as the editorial consultant to the “新加坡 Arts” magazine.
Mr. Tan Rui Rong began to study painting at the age of 11 and was the first university student to enter the Guizhou Art School (now the School of Music of Guizhou University) after resuming the college entrance examination in 1977. He was later admitted to the graduate school of Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Normal University.
Mr. Tan’s works reflect the combination of books and paintings, ancient and modern. His style of painting has a strong oriental colour. At the same time, it absorbs a lot of Western painting techniques and integrates various cultures, making his style fresh and elegant. His “glyph painting” literacy method uses the external space form of simplified Chinese characters as the object of shaping as well as the Chinese traditional element to process pictures through modern art means, providing the audience with the opportunity to learn Chinese characters as they enjoy his paintings. His works are full of Nanyang style, leaving a space for infinite imagination.