03.30.2024 by Uyên Thi
“Asian Art on the Rise” is a series of events by Asian Art Bridge gallery to honor the strong development of contemporary
& modern Asian art and the talent of Asian artists in France and Europe. We want to popularize the concepts of diverse arts and cultures from Asian countries into the European art scene. The Asian art scene cannot be restricted to China’s and Japan’s, but expands to Korea, Vietnam, Macau, Thailand, or down to South Asia such as Afghanistan, India, etc.
Curator: Linh Ann
In this exhibition, one draws everything in detail and collects energy into a, or some, black holes. At the opposite side, the other person’s works radiate a lot of energy from the body with a “void” – an emptiness of her thought or the liberation of her mind onto a large canvas surface. That’s the reason we combine both into “Polar Voids”. Two completely opposite poles share their own black hole.
How Hoai Phuong "touched nothingness"
“Remember your sin”, 77 x 42 cm | Ink, natural pigments on natural-dyed Fabriano Artistico 600gsm, 2024
“Remember your sin” directly references “The 7 sins” in The Bible, portraying 7 black lakes spanning from mountain peaks to valleys, pouring down as waterfall until reaching the bottom – a pitch black lake. Hoai-Phuong came across an article discussing “the evil” by Calre Carlise, which can be summarized: if good acts add up to our soul, what is added up by the evil acts? The answer is no, it doesn’t add up anything but rather, it removes something from us. There’s no one born evil and sinned, an infant is as pure as the cryolite that never knew the heat. This is a metaphor for the erosion of innocence and the accumulation of darkness through life’s journey. “Did I sin today? Am I bathing in one of these lakes” is a constant thought on the artist’s mind, and when you’re standing in front of this mountain, please spend a minute contemplating this thought.
“The Artificial abyss”, 77 x 40 cm | Ink on natural-dyed Fabriano Artistico 600gsm, 2024
“The Artificial abyss” draws inspiration from classical ink wash painting, juxtaposing the grandeur of nature with the insignificance of human being. However, the focal point of this painting is a deep dark abyss, an open-pit mines, which if being observed from high above, resembles fingerprints on the earth’s surface. These abysses were created
using the artist’s own fingerprint as a mold, symbolizing
the depth of human greed. And in our expedition into civilization, we left behind the trace devastation wrought upon environment and those sharing the same habitat, from other species to our own kind.
ioi Choi's "empty" state
The process of representing the body as an archive of movement involves mixing earth pigments with vegetable oil to create paint. The mixture is then applied to every surface of her body. Since Ioi works primarily on large scaled canvases spread out on the floor, there is enough space to swim across, performing a series of floorwork focusing on the body - its contractions, bends, rolls, and stretches. With the intention of arranging the body like a sculpture, carving the space around her, Ioi attempts to create a non-linear composition that layers over each other.
The performative process eliminates the boundaries between the body and the ground we stand on by initiating an intimate ritual with pigments from the soil of the earth; reminding us that we are not a single tree in a forest but the entire forest in a tree. We are a part of the universe, rather than apart from it.
In this series titled “MIRRORS” and “SILHOUETTES”, ioi expresses a journey of the human body as the starting point in relation to matter. Each chapter’s title provides a guideline to explore a spiritual aspect of existence. Each image is an invitation to accept the forms that surface
in the viewer’s mind’s eye. A mirror to each individual’s subconscious river. Much like a Rorschach test, each piece remains meaningless without its viewers’ perception of its seemingly abstract forms.
Duende III, 80 x 40 cm, Earth pigments and olive oil on canvas, 2024
Duende II, 40 x 30 cm, Earth pigments and oilve oil on canvas, 2024
If “The void” in Ioi’s artwork symbolizes the liberation of the mind, where body, color and consciousness fuse together, akin to the synthesis of all colors to create the perception of white, the art of Hoai-Phuong is her polar. It is the void of silent and reticent sorrow. Akin to the motif “memento mori” which is a reminder of death and the impermanent nature of life, this series of works is a reminder of the deep void within our mental landscapes.
Even Ioi is the opposite of Phuong, drawing completely spontaneously depending on the color layers that follow his choreography. But in the end, the paintings of Ioi and Phuong are complementary in color and frequency. Both have their own definition of VOID by themselves.