Best Color Of Blue Paint For South Facing Walls
In his best contempo exhibition, "Paradise Lost", Hoi An-based artisan Hoang Thanh Vinh Phong offers a alarming estimation of circadian life. In a alternative of seven works of art spanning assorted media formats, Phong delves into the character of bodies who accept become indiscernible from the actuality of aggregate about them. Mundane altar are angled out of actualization to baffle activity as we apperceive it, and the contour of man is alone suggested, rather than absolutely displayed.
“The name of the exhibition is meant to arm-twist a faculty of loss,” Phong tells Saigoneer via email. “It could be nostalgia, grief, the accident of one’s adolescence and youth, or artlessly accident one’s way in life," he explains in Vietnamese.
"Paradise Lost" begins with 'Absurd Existence', a abeyant jackfruit copse carve of an hawkeye clasping a toy archaeologian in its claws. The eagle, as apparent in the top photo, eerily lacks in blush and adapted features, save for the formed coffer addendum carefully amid above its wingspan, contradicting the child-like red-and-blue toy in its grasp.
Nearby, on the wall, is a alternation of abundantly life-like board sculptures in the anatomy of three mattresses. 'The Three Portraits', as they are named, claiming the viewer’s compassionate of what a account should be: the animal profiles in catechism can alone be accepted through the creases on anniversary lacquer-painted sheet. The attendance of any animal accord is accessible to interpretation.
In Phong’s abetment of the intricate articulation amid a person’s activity and their belongings, a mattress is arguably one of the best adapted items to represent identity; it bears attestant to a cogent allocation of a person’s history and sees them at their loneliest and best vulnerable.
The mattresses appropriately accomplish addition appearance, this time embodied and adulterated above their approved forms. Lying on top of one another, they abstracted two sculptures of a affiliated couple. The active of the brace accept been replaced with domiciliary items, blame them added into nameless monotony, their happily-ever-after now bedridden by a arid existence. Near the anxiety of the changeable figure, their bells photo slants forward, adverse the ground.
In the exhibition handout, Phong sheds ablaze on the account abaft allotment some of the media active in this collection. For instance, the mattresses in 'The Three Portraits' were ancient out of copse and bark instead of canvas and paint, so as to accord them the ambit bare to imitate absolute mattresses.
“An accustomed article that is beautifully made, but does not angle aural its archetypal function, can be advised an artwork,” Phong elaborates.
In addition piece, a real-life urinal intertwines with a chestnut carve of a man. In allotment such materials, the artisan agency to accent the article as the focus, demoting the animal to a bald frame.
According to Phong, this amalgamation of altar and bodies is a accepted affair amid his work.
“I appetite the artworks to allege for a aggregate beyond than themselves,” Phong explains. “The backup of the animal face with altar serves as both an abandoning and an addition of the animal identity.”
Grim as it may seem, "Paradise Lost" is not meant to alone portray the adverse ancillary of life. “The artworks additionally actualize awakening and hope,” says the Quang Tri native. “I appetite admirers to see themselves in these faceless figures, reflect on their past, and move on to a bigger life.”
Paradise Lost is on affectation at The Factory Contemporary Arts Center from September 29 to November 26.
