Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, August 29, 2025 : Tiantian Lou, an American emerging artist (#2352)

Friday, August 29, 2025

Artist of the Day, August 29, 2025 : Tiantian Lou, an American emerging artist (#2352)

Tiantian Lou (1995) shapes her artistic practice around a continuous curiosity for spatial conditions tangent to architecture. Drawing from her expertise in textile and printmaking, Tiantian utilizes a diverse range of artistic mediums, experimenting with them in her inquiries. She holds an M. Arch from Princeton University and a B.Arch and BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

On her own words:
Currently, I am exploring the idea of monumentality, which is often a language of power—rigid, symmetrical, and enduring. In my work, I soften these ideals by introducing softness, asymmetry, and ambiguity to reshape our perception of the built environment. Through both painting and sculpture, I diffuse the authority of architectural forms, inviting a reconsideration of their permanence and meaning.

My paintings and sculptures exist in conversation, exploring the tension between structure and instability. In my paintings, architectural forms compress into stacked compositions that blur the line between buildings and still-life objects. Their geometric precision is subtly disrupted—off-kilter symmetry, shifting colors, and layered forms create a sense of precarious balance, unsettling the stability of these structures. Scale, too, becomes ambiguous—monuments shrink into intimate arrangements while everyday objects take on architectural weight.

This fluidity between monument and model carries into my sculptures, where rigid structures—most notably the column—are reimagined in fabric. What begins as a measured, geometric plan is softened through the act of sewing, where seams, folds, and slight distortions introduce a human touch. These fabric columns resist the solidity of their stone counterparts, embracing movement, flexibility, and imperfection. As they scale up, their softness becomes even more pronounced, amplifying the contrast between the monument’s intended authority and its newfound vulnerability.

By shifting scale and material, my work redefines monumentality as something dynamic rather than fixed. A building can be soft, unstable, even intimate; a still-life can carry the weight of an entire structure. I propose an alternative monumentality—one that is fluid, mutable, and human, embracing imperfection and the presence of the hand.

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