Tofer Chin
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Artist Statement
Inspired by the built environment, natural or manmade, Tofer Chin creates geometric paintings, sculptures, and photographs that interpret observations of urban and geological landscapes. His investigation produces images and patterns from architectural facades to land formations. In the studio, Chin recreates these images as minimalist forms or archetypes. His intent is to merge the objective and subjective, and present a particularly honed vision. Although each work adheres to a formulaic expression, what is important is to present a window into the psychological space within the viewer.
Each work is based on the keyhole perspective, seeing only a portion of what’s behind. Chin’s work relies on mathematics to achieve visual harmony, structural integrity, and logical construction. Digital tools and an increasing interest in architectural form have given him the means to describe and build spatial constructs that allow him to investigate altered mental states. Artists such as John Baldessari, Katharina Grosse, Richard Serra, John McCracken, and Cai Guo-Qiang as well as architects Oscar Neimeyer and Tadao Ando have influenced Chin’s vocabulary of straight lines that are balanced between pattern, movement, and form; a fusion of perceptual mystery as his line obscures the content as well as manifests the imagery and the dimensional properties of the shape. Chin’s practice inspires the active process in the viewer’s mind to visualize information and incorporate this into a final product.
Artist Bio
Tofer Chin is an investigator into and an instigator of altered mental states. Inspired by John Baldessari’s approach, Katharina Grosse’s movement, and Jeff Koons’ impact, Chin’s use of repetition of pattern as if they were bricks or tiles result in abstract landscapes. The geometric constructions of Chin’s sculpture, paintings and photographs are based on mathematical calculations, with titles based on the sum of its constituent parts: number, color and form. Although each work adheres to a formulaic geometric expression, it is a jump-off into a psychological space within the viewer. A native of Los Angeles, Tofer Chin was born in 1979 and graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in LA. His work has been seen in Parque Lage, a public park in Rio de Janeiro, as well as in São Paulo, where he was commissioned to do a large-scale permanent installation. As a member of ROJO® NOVA, Chin has exhibited at the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo in 2010, at the Rojo Art Space in Milan in 2009, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2008.
Artist
Tofer Chin
