Soka Art is pleased to announce that Ma Tao's first solo exhibition in Beijing's Space, “Big Moon”, will be presented on July 20, 2024. Curated by Yuana, this exhibition will feature 16 painting works over the past two years created by the artist and will run until August 17.

The title of this exhibition comes from Ma Tao's work of the same name, “Big Moon”, a work that displays the artist's usual sense of humor and wonders in both its name and images. He placed the bright moon in a limited indoor space, which seems to be a private collection. When the moonlight spreads to the surroundings and even to the more space outside the window, everything becomes soft and peaceful, as if the world is brightened by the sharing of one's personal item.

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“The Romantic malady is to want the moon as if it could actually be obtained.”

— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 

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From the earliest ancestors' worship of nature to today’s exploration of celestial bodies, the moon has always been an eternal topic and a carrier of the self-consciousness of many romanticists. Rather than asserting that Ma Tao is a pure romanticist, it is better to say that he organically merged romance into life and integrated it into his creation. For example, in the work “From the Balloon to The Walking Stick”, the balloon pulls the cane, light and stubborn, while the cane also supports the balloon to avoid being swept away by the air. This kind of symbiotic relationship of mutual dependence is a silent indication of the life of human beings. Growth and decline are like the rotting of fruits and vegetables, like the rotation of seasons, inevitable and nothing we can do. If the waxing and waning of the moon means death and rebirth, then the exhaustion of the physical body is just the prelude to the continuous cycle of spiritual power. As long as the light over the head is still there, there is no real passing away.

Ma Tao's paintings always convey emotions in the most direct and pure way, in his own words, “translation of emotions”. The series of works in this exhibition are all completed in the post-epidemic period, with more saturated colors than before, responding to the artist's immediate state of life and psychological clamor. Epicureanism in philosophy believes that there is no intermediate state like “no pain” between happiness and pain, and the process of constantly getting rid of pain is the way to achieve happiness. For an artist, creation is the process of peeling away pain little by little, and finally arriving at happiness. Ma Tao's practice of using large areas of bright pink, emerald green, and lemon yellow on the canvas so that they compete with the main subject in a state of integration, which is difficult to control but fascinating. He tried to break the simple composition of a specific still life with joyful contrasting colors, enlarge the tension of the sweetness of the painting, also retain the innocence of adults' dreams, so as to make up for the feeling left by the pain and heal the uneasiness of miserable memories。

Reality is chaotic and confusing, the ultimate world of fantasy is one that people have only dared to look up to, but Ma Tao's reverie and vision lead the viewer to it. As night falls, the moon is leaning closer, our hearts gradually become complete.