The Year 2006 - Mo Maurice Tan
Bornt in 1969, Mo Maurice Tan is a Singaporean artist based in Paris. He wanders around the world globally in search of drawing inspirations from modern urban landscapes and incorporating them into his architectural art style.
Mo has been to more than 70 countries, and his works are based on his impressions of cities ranging from Paris to Hong Kong, Barcelona to Tokyo. After he graduated with a diploma in graphic design in 1993 from Temasek Polytechnic, he took a trip to Europe to visit art museums and ended up staying for several years, painting and selling his works on the street of Paris, Florence, and London.
Mo is the best described as a modern urban landscape artist, using watercolor and acrylic to depict cityscapes, often from a rooftop perspective. Selective in the details he presents, Mo isolates the essential earth tones in his scenes and adopts them in broad blocks of light and shade. His works are somewhat reminiscent of classic Chinese landscapes, with their large areas of empty space on the canvas, and unfinished borders leaving the viewer to imagine much of the scene. His works are largely devoid of expression or details, giving his scenes a hauntingly serene feel.
His landscapes seem to hang frozen in time and space, an impression emphasized by Mo's technique of leaving the bottom of his paintings unfinished, the drips of paint reminding one that the artist is controlling our impressions of the scene. Having studied graphic design and architecture, Mo is very talented at summarizing the architectural dimensions of buildings, roofs, and streets, and imparts a telephotonic depth to his works.He has exhibited at numerous art exhibits and galleries in Paris, Los Angeles, Geneva, Nagoya dam Zurich.