HCMC – Exhibition “A Transformative Disguise”

Opening: Thu 26 Apr, 6 pm
Exhibition: 27 Apr – 25 May 2012
Sàn Art

From Sàn Art:
Sàn Art presents ‘A Transformative Disguise’, a solo traveling exhibition by Ho Chi Minh City-based artist, Le Hoang Bich Phuong, co-produced by Sàn Art and the Japan Foundation, opening 26 April at 6pm at Sàn Art. This exhibition is the artist’s first solo show and will transform the gallery space of Sàn Art, playing with ideas of reflection and transparency, encouraging the audience to question what kind of masks they may be wearing in their own everyday.

Crows are superstitiously considered unlucky in Vietnam so when Le Hoang Bich Phuong found herself in Sapporo, Japan lost in her attempt to find an art supply store, she was hesitant to approach the only shop on the street that was surrounded by a flock of these black, loud birds. A Japanese man stepped forward to help her find her destination by a hand drawn game of Pictionary. From that day forward, crows have ceased to be unlucky for Bich Phuong. Such personal encounters are frequently referenced in the work of this emerging artist whose recall of human character is cunningly, at times comically analogous to the myths of the animal world.

In this exhibition a series of portraits in silk, representing herself, including various strangers and friends both real and imagined, wear the facial mask of particular animals — donkeys with buckteeth possess skeletal hands; an old bear towers like an oversized hooded jacket over a young child’s face; a pig sits sickly with a dripping and swelling red nose; or a Japanese operatic mask of a fox stands pulling at her lips as if she cannot speak. Deftly painted in subtle watercolor tones, what these images refer are the indulgent and insecure habits of the human condition.

Fascinated with the way established and vernacular mythological narrative can offer moral or ethical lessons; Le Hoang Bich Phuong playfully alludes to a myriad of cultural tradition from Japanese and Vietnamese fairytale to insightful re-readings of Aesop and children’s nursery rhymes. In her world, the donning of invisible masks is a frequent practice in contemporary life where either by means of survival or psychological insecurity, these masks appears to offer some kind of protection. Accompanying these paintings is a series of miniature ceramic sculptures whose human bodies have bonded with their masks; some have limbs that are missing, while another has a fish tank for a brain. What Le Hoang Bich Phuong questions in ‘A Transformative Disguise’ are whether these masks once worn, can ever truly be removed.

This traveling exhibition will open in Hanoi from the 28 June – 27 July, 2012. Address: 27 Quang Trung, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi.

Le Hoang Bich Phuong (b. 1984, Ho Chi Minh City) is one of Vietnam’s most promising young artists whose study of Vietnamese and Japanese silk painting traditions has greatly influenced her own unique style and technique. Influenced by the ukiyo-e tradition, while also drawn to the popular world of the comic, her strong command of line and color creates an ethereal, near surreal presence. A graduate of the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University, she was awarded an artist-in-residence in Sapporo, Japan, as part of the ‘JENESYS Program: Invitation Program for Creators’ of the Japan Foundation in 2011 and that same year was also one of the finalists for the DOGMA Art Prize in self-portraiture. In 2010 she was finalist in the ‘Talent Prize’ of the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund. Recent exhibitions include ‘Sapporo Biennale 2011’, Sapporo, Japan, 2011; ‘Shaping a line’, Sàn Art, 2011; ‘Saigon Contemporary’, La Lanta Fine Art Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand, 2011.