Tofer Chin

Born and raised in Los Angeles, I not only know the many facets of the city; but I live and work amongst it. In addition to paintings and sculpture, I create large scale installations throughout many of the world's cities that activate awareness. Several of these spaces, once abandoned, have become rejuvenated. Overall I develop a dialogue between the environment and the occupants that inhabit.

Inspired by the built environment and mirroring a ‘Los Angeles’ sensibility as my point of reference, a fascination with the flat image to 3-dimensional illusion has brought me to a constant investigation of line, shadow, shape and color. My work relies on mathematics to achieve visual harmony, structural integrity, and logical construction. In my Los Angeles studio, I recreate these images as minimalist forms or archetypes. My intent is to merge the objective and subjective, and present a particularly honed vision based on the keyhole perspective that is sincere.

Digital tools and an increasing interest in architectural form have given me the means to describe and build spatial constructs that allow me to investigate altered mental states. Artists such as John Baldessari, Oscar Neimeyer, Katharina Grosse and sculptors Richard Serra, John McCracken, and Cai Guo-Qiang have influenced my vocabulary of straight lines, cubes, and quadrilateral pyramids that are balanced between pattern, movement, and form; a fusion of perceptual mystery as my line obscures the content as well as manifests the imagery and the dimensional properties of the shape.




The Office of Art in Embassies is not responsible for, and does not endorse, any content posted within the service. The Office of Art in Embassies does not have any obligation to prescreen, monitor, edit, or remove any content.