KVT – Briefly Abstracted

Le Anh Quan had an involving exhibition of large canvasses at the Viet Art Centre, Yet Kieu. His best work was layered, scratched back, splattered, brushed, spilled, gripped and grappled and, at times, slightly torn. It seemed to be full of shadowy figures in earthily toned landscapes. It had a youthful exuberance that grabbed at you as soon as you entered the gallery… that feeling was no doubt accelerated by the fact that – be they mono, diptych, even triptych – they were hung so well that none encroached into the space of another.

A catalogue from a previous exhibition says that Quan’s work shows the influence of abstract expressionism and many might point out a Pollockian dribble, a de Kooning scrape, a Twomblian line or two, but so what! Like a lot of good young artists who are challenging stereotypes and expectations he has to reference a lot of the old abstractionists if his style is to grow and not set into a repetitious mould. I like his present pathway, especially when overt figurativeness is pushed into the realms of viewer imagination. I thought that for this exhibition he could have left out the self portraits and a couple of pieces that try to outline the figures and define a story line.

It’s an exhibition that was hard not to become engrossed in. After a lot of introspection I’ve decided that my favorite was the yellow and green diptych… sorry I liked the work too much to allow its title to influence my personal interpretation.

Unfortunately it was only on for five days and finished on the 29th.