TIAN DEXI

1979

“Each object retains the traces of its past while assuming new layers of meaning”

Tian Dexi is a Chinese-born visual artist, who graduated with highest honors from the École Nationale d’Art de Cergy-Pontoise in 2012, following his training at the Shandong Academy of Fine Arts. Based in France since 2007, he explores the creative potential of found and gifted objects, which he transforms into immersive installations.

His work is rooted in the notion of the palimpsest: each object retains the traces of its past while assuming new layers of meaning. Through processes of deconstruction and recomposition, he composes visual and spatial poems in which forms, textures, and colors unfold as narratives.

Three guiding principles shape his artistic approach: economic, ecological, and poetic. Each exhibition is conceived in dialogue with its site: Tian gathers local materials and inspiration to create context-specific, immersive installations. His works, at the intersection of minimalism and symbolism, probe the terrain of memory, the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the ephemeral.