Bin Tao insists on crafting all his frames by hand,resulting in frames significantly heavier thanstandard ones- itis a “necessary action” rooted in an instinctive shift within his creativeexperience.

In a Shanxi antique market, he oncefelt a peculiar connection between his own fateand the scattered farm tools at one vendor’sstall-tools that, like him, had retreated from the specific contexts of their functional roles insociety. This realization led Tao Bin to channel hiscreative impulses for mixed media into theseabandoned tools, choosing not to view them intheir entirety but focusing on select parts instead.

The meticulous traces of use in his paintingstestify to the weight of this gaze, with anotherlayer of weight added by the self-developedcement mixture poured at the base of each piece.This cement provides a solid foundation for thepaintings while also creating a psychologicalheaviness for the artist, serving as an almostcauseless yet essential prerequisite before hebegins his work. Thus, from the choice of woodfor the frames to the selection of objects withinthe paintings, Tao Bin’s creative process startswith the frame itself, outlining a transcendent,inner drive-a dual effort at restoring meaningand constructing subjectivity.

The objects in his paintings are not, at first, whatKant described as “the thing in itself”; rather, theyare what Tao Bin considers “retired objects.” Oncethey arrive in his studio from the antique market,they acquire a new destiny, becoming “epoche”objects suspended in the artist’s attentive gaze.Their existence, or evidence thereof, is beingrevalidated through his paintings, halting theimagination of their social functions within theimage itself. This represents artist’ s personalintervention, where meaning in the process maynot need explicit articulation. Both the creatorand the created attain a self-sufficient, transcendent state through this interaction, andthe eternal crown should be bestowed upon thosewho act without cause in the present moment.