Tan Mu has long been interested in how digital technology shapes contemporary landscapes and offers new perspectives. Landscape (2021) is based on a virtual landscape created using a 3D modeling program. This digital terrain was dismantled, analyzed, and used to design an urban residential complex. The grid-like structure in the painting represents the neighborhoods and roads planned for the future city, reflecting how technology predefines and constructs the blueprint for urban development. Through the deliberate process of traditional painting, Tan Mu reinterprets and reconstructs this digitally generated urban vision. Landscape is not only a response to the technological shaping of reality but also an exploration of the transformation between the virtual and the real, between rapid digital generation and handcrafted reproduction. The work highlights society’s reliance on digital technology while creating a dialogue between the calculated logic of digital tools and the emotional warmth of painting by hand.

Q: Your work Landscape (2021) depicts a virtual cityscape. How did your personal experience shape your interest in urban landscapes?

Tan Mu: I have long been drawn to distant mountains and the way light shifts across vast terrains, such as the subtle movement of shadows at sunset or the glow spreading across a desert horizon. This visual sensitivity traces back to a trip I took to Mongolia years ago, where the openness of the land and the rolling desert hills left a lasting impression on me. Those scenes later resurfaced unexpectedly through the virtual landscapes of the city building games I played as a child.

In these games, players begin with an empty terrain and gradually introduce mountains, rivers, and infrastructure before constructing cities. Roads, residential zones, industrial areas, and transportation systems must all be carefully planned. One could zoom out to observe traffic patterns or zoom in to examine how disasters or congestion unfolded. This experience trained me to think about cities as systems rather than static images. It shaped the way I understand the relationship between natural terrain and human intervention. Over time, I realized that these accumulated visual memories had quietly informed my artistic practice, even before I was consciously aware of their influence.

Q: You often refer to the influence of a god’s eye view in your work. What does this perspective allow you to explore?

Tan Mu: The god’s eye view, whether encountered through gaming, aerial photography, or satellite imagery, offers a detached yet comprehensive way of observing the world. This perspective allows me to study urban structures, spatial organization, and human intervention without being grounded in a single physical position. It has become a recurring visual language in works such as Data Center, Solar Farm, Horizon, and my ongoing series on South American observatories.

From this elevated viewpoint, cities appear as patterns rather than lived spaces. Roads, grids, and infrastructures become abstract systems interacting with natural terrain. This distance enables me to reflect on how technology mediates our relationship with the environment and how human design attempts to impose order on complex natural systems. Through this perspective, I am less concerned with individual narratives and more focused on the structural logic that governs contemporary landscapes.

Q: How do you translate a virtual landscape into the language of traditional painting?

Tan Mu: The source image for Landscape originates from a virtual environment generated through a 3D model. I begin by deconstructing this digital scene, analyzing its geometry, light, and spatial logic through digital methodologies. I then reconstruct it using oil painting, relying on color relationships, texture, and layering to create a sense of material presence.

Although the landscape does not exist in the physical world, painting allows it to acquire a tactile realism. The grid patterns in the composition represent streets and zoning systems, forming a rigid framework that contrasts with the organic curves of mountains and terrain. As I layer paint, underlying colors subtly emerge through the grid, suggesting depth and accumulation. This process mirrors the way cities themselves are built over time, layer upon layer. Through this translation, I aim to blur the boundary between the virtual and the physical, revealing how digital structures increasingly shape our perception of reality.