Between Distance and Stillness
TongTong Deng’s journey through countries and cultures has uniquely shaped her voice as a painter. Raised in Chengdu, Sichuan—a place quietly shaped by Taoist philosophy—she was immersed in a way of life that subtly emphasized balance, silence, and the invisible energies threading through everyday encounters. Since leaving China at 14, TongTong has lived in Canada and the United States, eventually making her home in London. This layered cultural background, combined with an intuitive sensitivity to her surroundings, infuses her work with a quiet introspection. Rather than making loud declarations, her paintings whisper of tensions and distances that hover between certainty and ambiguity. They reflect not only what she observes, but how she chooses to look.
TongTong’s fascination lies in the delicate interactions between people, objects, and the intangible charges that pass between them. Her work doesn’t aim to resolve or define these relationships, but to invite a kind of noticing—to acknowledge the overlooked spaces where things neither connect nor detach fully. She often explores these “in-between” zones where proximity creates a subtle tension, one that may feel unresolved or even unsettling. Rather than smoothing over such discomfort, TongTong allows it to remain, breathing quietly within her compositions. These emotional undercurrents are never dramatic or theatrical. Instead, they invite contemplation, asking viewers to slow down and tune into what lies just beyond the obvious.
This approach, while deeply personal, is also philosophical. TongTong’s sensitivity resonates closely with the Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware—a gentle, melancholy recognition of impermanence and fleeting beauty. Even before encountering the term, she felt aligned with its ethos. Her paintings become containers for these intangible sensations: impermanence, distance, stillness, and gentle unease. Rather than portraying specific narratives, they offer spaces where emotional textures can emerge and quietly breathe, untouched by the need for resolution or explanation.
TongTong Deng: Solitude as Structure
For TongTong, painting is not an act of self-expression in the typical sense—it’s a necessity, a form of companionship and understanding. Language has never felt like her most natural mode of communication, and painting filled that gap, offering a way to process complex emotions that words could not contain. The studio, therefore, becomes a sanctuary: a space removed from noise, people, and obligation. In this separation, she finds clarity. The solitude is not isolating but grounding, offering her the focus required to truly engage with her materials, her thoughts, and her instincts. This focused withdrawal allows her to reach a depth of attention that is impossible in the everyday world.
Her work routine mirrors the themes that appear in her art. The ritual of entering the studio—placing her bag in the same spot, changing into work clothes, adjusting the skylight, and preparing the temperature—becomes its own kind of choreography. These repeated actions signal a shift in presence, marking the entrance into a world governed not by linear time but by sensation and attention. Much like the visual repetitions in her paintings, these habits are quiet stabilizers. They offer a rhythm that allows deeper emotional work to surface, unpressured by external expectation.
This repetition, both in practice and concept, holds a central place in her art. In TongTong’s view, repetition does not produce sameness but reveals subtle variation—the minute shifts that occur when something is revisited again and again. It’s in these shifts that honesty emerges. A shape, a gesture, or a texture repeated across the canvas becomes a vessel for exploring sensitivity, discomfort, or resonance. Each recurrence opens the possibility for new understanding, not only of the form itself but of her own internal state at the time of its making.
Touch, Trace, and Transformation
TongTong’s relationship to material is not based on mastery or control, but on dialogue. Her chosen medium often arises from a deep listening to what the work requires—not just visually, but emotionally. Whether she’s working with oil paint, pencil, or incorporating soil, straw, or sand into her surfaces, her choices emerge from a need to find materials that align with the texture of her thoughts. Pencil drawing, in particular, remains a foundational part of her process. These sketches, quiet and deliberate, serve as a way to observe internal shifts and shape the emotional scaffolding of a piece before it becomes color and form.
Her paintings are not constructed solely with brushstrokes; they begin much earlier, often at the level of surface preparation. The canvas is layered with textures that carry weight, not just visually but metaphorically. Earth-based materials become collaborators, anchoring the work in a physical presence while opening space for emotional resonance. These tactile beginnings influence the finished piece in subtle but crucial ways, creating a sense of groundedness that mirrors her internal need for stillness and structure.
TongTong has also started to explore unexpected visual obsessions, including a recent fixation on the color red and the textures of worn leather sofas. Red, once a color she avoided, has become increasingly compelling—more than just a hue, it now feels like a mood or pressure she wants to understand. Similarly, her attention to leather surfaces stems from their ability to absorb time, touch, and presence. These interests may one day shape a new body of work, but for now, they linger in the periphery, slowly gathering meaning. TongTong does not force ideas into existence; she waits for them to mature, to align with her emotional state, and to reveal when they are ready to become paintings.
TongTong Deng: A Living Archive of Perception
TongTong sees her body of work not as a collection of individual masterpieces, but as an evolving archive—an emotional and perceptual record of her inner movements over time. Instead of anchoring meaning in a single piece, she views her earlier works as reflections of specific moments in her personal development. These pieces, often characterized by cool tones and detached composition, focused on the interplay between human figures and their surrounding spaces. At the time, her work was more observational, held together by a sense of quiet structure and analytical distance.
Over the years, her attention has shifted. Repetition now plays a larger role, as does the search for subtle patterns and overlooked relationships. Color has taken on a more emotional function, becoming a tool not only for shaping form but for carrying feeling. The personal and universal have begun to blur in her compositions, as she moves between detailed intimacy and expansive gestures. Rather than illustrating fixed ideas, she listens for what the painting wants to become. This openness allows her work to retain a sense of discovery, both for herself and for the viewer.
Among her artistic influences, she cites artists whose practice is inseparable from how they live and see. Domenico Gnoli’s transition from stage design to painting speaks to her admiration for artists who elevate the ordinary through focused observation. His attention to overlooked detail resonates with her own intent. Similarly, Wolfgang Laib’s ritualistic use of natural materials and quiet sensitivity to time echo in TongTong’s tactile and reflective processes. What connects these artists in her mind is not technique but perception—their ability to look beyond surfaces and into deeper layers of presence. That depth of seeing, more than any aesthetic choice, is what continues to shape TongTong’s evolving visual language.
