KVT – The Homeland of Tuan Anh
For me the canvas is redolent with expectation
The base of memory is a green paddy at rice planting time, the heart beat of the artist’s rural village, whose bounty meant either full stomachs or famine. Three red farmers are symbols of socialism and reform that tried to supplant traditional cultural memories. Thus the statue of the spirit of the village stands expelled from the green raft that, for a long time, had been an insular world. Expelled but not forgotten! Similarly a crumbling village Dinh sits in reflected memory of its once upon a time place as the spiritual center of the villagers’ universe.
A rifle has an ominous presence in the top right hand corner and although the viewer may think of revolution or war, the artist uses the weapon to symbolize the god of money and modernization that is shattering tradition, supplanting ancient deities and dispersing rural populations so that, perhaps soon, memories of homeland will be impossible to reclaim
The artist observes all this as the bullet rips a hole in the fabric of memory opening it up to a hot sun capable of spreading a fateful drought over past memories, traditions and experiences.
We see the artist twice in this village scene, as adult.. With eyes wide open he recalls the innocence of youth, the dilemmas of adulthood and the prospect of aging. With eyes closed perhaps he reflects, meditates and accepts
Stretched between is a low wooden stool, ubiquitous furniture in rural tea-stalls. It partially covers a black rectangle fringed in fiery red. This could be a doorway to a deeper, darker, part of the subconscious, or inevitable fate, or a portal to an afterlife.
An almost insignificant snail, perhaps a representation of times much less complicated, crawls blindly towards an uncertain future.
Three bonsai-ed plants sit along the stool. Three ages of life? A self portrait of the artist? One is in a simply fired clay pot of the countryside. It represents a rural childhood. The breast fruit is rich in milk and the leaf speaks of love and nurturing. It is at once fragile but lithe and full of hope.
The second is in a modern, expensive pot that is a mixture of many styles. It is already fissured and could crack irreparably. It represents the middle years when a person threads a wary path through life with all its burrs and thorns, temptations and hard decisions. It has been manipulated into shape and it’s fruit is hard to peel. Its truth and core is hard to discern
The third is a withered stick that has to be propped up so that it doesn’t collapse. It bears a wrinkled leathery fruit that weeps tears for what used to be. It is in a traditional pagoda pot and represents old age as it retreats back to the safety and certainty of conservative tradition.
A canvas almost too rich with meaning. Each piece of symbolism seems to have its opposite in a dialogue of ying and yang. It’s named ‘Between’ and I guess it is an exploration of a remembered past and an uncertain, changing future.
It obviously begins withVietnam’s creation myth and the children of Au Co now spread between sea and the mountains. It encapsulates the symbols of past historical eras and may incorporates an innate desire to search for meaning and luck through traditional belief in the zodiac and fortune tellers divination sticks and through imposed ideologies.
