Bin Tao (b.1982) was born in Laiwu, ShandongProvince. He graduated from the Department ofPlastic Arts, Beijing Institute of FashionTechnology, majoring in oil painting in 2010, andnow lives and works in Beijing.

Bin Tao insists on crafting all his frames by hand, resulting in frames significantly heavier thanstandard ones- it is a “necessary action” rooted
in an instinctive shift within his creative experience. In a Shanxi antique market, he oncefelt a peculiar connection between his own fateand the scattered farm tools at one vendor’s stall-tools that, like him, had retreated from thespecific contexts of their functional roles in society.

This realization led Bin Tao to channel his creative impulses for mixed media into these abandoned tools, choosing not to view them in their entirety but focusing on select parts instead. The meticulous traces of use in his paintings testify to the weight of this gaze, with another layer of weight added by the self-developed cement mixture poured at the base of each piece.This cement provides a solid foundation for the paintings while also creating a psychological heaviness for the artist, serving as an almost
causeless yet essential prerequisite before hebegins his work. Thus, from the choice of woodfor the frames to the selection of objects within the paintings, Tao Bin’ s creative process startswith the frame itself, outlining a transcendent,inner drive-a dual effort at restoring meaningand constructing subjectivity.