Of Reveries and Obsessions is characterized by an uncanny violence and disturbing uneasiness. Featuring the work of Tiffany Chung, Nadège David, Do Hoang Tuong, Sandrine Llouquet and Tran Van Thao – five artists based in Ho Chi Minh City – the exhibition explores the compulsive nature of art-making contemplative of the urban experience. While the works may range in style and medium, each refers to the obsessive impulse of creation or a drugged, dreamlike state of existence.
The pained expressions worn by the faces in Do Hoang Tuong’s paintings reflect his modern anxiety concerning the loss of traditional family values. Tiffany Chung also explores the disquietude of living in a modern metropolis through the iterative process of drawing, cutting, and arranging her collages, creating artificially beautiful, but claustrophobic environments. Nadège David’s sinuous webs of repetitive black lines create figures that are akin to those of Sandrine Llouquet’s – figures which are at once sweet and twisted. Finally, Tran Van Thao’s paintings with their brilliant backgrounds elicit feelings of apprehension or tranquility that mark the intuitive nature of his work. Of Reveries and Obsessions brings together artists whose works are marked with fantasy, uncertainty and anxiety.
