Event
It's Going to Rain
Tielin Ding
Real Art Ways presents It’s Going to Rain, a solo exhibition by Real Art Award winner Tielin Ding
It’s Going to Rain is a multimedia exhibition by Tielin Ding that explores the tension between objects and their environments. Through layered tactile materials and digitally manipulated photographic prints, the work captures fleeting states—like leaves in air or light in rain—rather than static forms. Recurring motifs, such as the umbrella and the color yellow, embody themes of protection, faith, continuation, and separation, reflecting on how we navigate uncertainty within shifting natural and cultural landscapes.
John Cage’s question, “When a truck passes by a music school, which is more musical?” isn’t really asking us to pick between the truck or the school — it’s meant to reframe the distinction and remind us that music is everywhere, if we choose to listen.
Tielin Ding approaches his exhibition, It’s Going to Rain, with a similar spirit; pondering the visual world through the relationships between objects and environments. The works exhibited represent a range of energies, from that of just before a storm, to the tension that precedes a natural eruption, to the fleeting moments that articulate transformation. By focusing on the friction between objects and their environments, It’s Going to Rain presents a look at the moments between safety and uncertainty, logic and whimsy.
Tielin is a wanderer, observer and mixed-media process-based artist interested in repetition of forms and movements; operation of chances and metaphors. In his installation works, he likes displacing objects, shifting their scales and relocating their context, aiming for building its own constellation with a leap of thought and a slow surprise.
He holds the belief that “At the center of a mirage, is its transformation”. “Chance favors a prepared mind.” A lot of times, inspiration comes from his observation while wandering, while playing, while living. Sometimes, it can be mystic and improvisational. He has been very interested in drifting in the field of language and space, risking getting lost from point A to point B.
About the Artist
Born in 1996 in Chongqing, China. Tielin Ding is a wanderer, observer and mixed-media artist currently based in New York and Shanghai. He graduated from MFA in photography and related media at Parsons School of Design, The New School in NYC with a bachelor’s background in architecture engineering at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He exhibited his works at Site Santa Fe in New Mexico, Brand Library in California, Garrison Art Center/BAU Gallery/The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival in the Netherlands and Reclaim Award in Germany. Past residency he attended includes Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, Abbott Watts Photography Residency at Monson Arts, Nars Foundation Satellite Residency on Governors Island, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation residency, Millay Arts, VCCA and Volland Foundation.
