About
Tong Pan (潘桐) is a Chinese-American interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. Born in Guangzhou, China, he migrated to the Bay Area in 2011.
After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he began collaborating with peers across various creative fields, aiming to cultivate creativity as a form of freedom. While his surrealist quartet Tunnel introduces the public to 'catastrophe music,’ his visual works explore moments that pierce the fabric of individual reality. He draws from personal experience, observation, and imagination, seeking to convey the fleeting 'happenings' that challenge and negotiate with our ever-evolving, atomized reality.
Artist Statement
It could be a selfish manifestation of Tong’s worldview or philosophical belief, he felt the need to articulate them visually and sonically. A sensory exploration in the name of absurdism, perhaps, it’s for the cheap thrills and the painterly announcement of the existence of the peculiarity of ordinary objects and the surrealism within the mundane.