Perpetual Brightness
2019 -ongoing
Watercolour on silk, Vietnamese lacquer on wood (pigment, lacquer, eggshell, silver leaf).
Lacquer paintings made in collaboration with Truong Cong Tung.
180 x 150 x 25 cm (combined), 53 x 73 x 12 cm (each)
In Perpetual Brightness Phan returns to traditional techniques learned during her studies in Ho Chi Minh City. The structure of the folding screen in which the paintings are presented references a lacquered screen by modernist designer Eileen Gray. However, Phan explains, “unlike the purism of Gray’s lacquered screens, Perpetual Brightness is full of allegory, both in terms of its subject matter and its execution. The screens are double-sided, one side is a fragmented map of the Nine Dragons river […] using the Vietnamese lacquer painting technique. The river is inlaid with eggshell and silver leaf. On the other side, the silk panels depict a ceremony of mourning and the worshipping of the spirits of stranded whales, a ritual practiced by fishermen along the Vietnamese coast. Phan elaborates upon her subject’s connection to her chosen medium: “Perpetual Brightness criticizes the desire for a physical brightness, the brightness from electricity consumption and the brightness of the dollar bill, manifested in the accelerated speed of dam building on the Mekong. Lacquer and silk painting […] require water to exist as a medium. Lacquer paint can only dry in a relatively humid atmosphere, then the paint is sanded away under running water in order to reveal the layering of paint underneath; each lacquer panel is indeed an archaeological site. In the same way, paint pigment on silk is absorbed by the method of washing away each layer of painting. The lacquer palette is entirely a natural material: soil, stone, lacquer tree sap, gold and silver leaf, and eggshell. This is a similar process to that of the Mekong River that brings alluvium and sediment to the delta, and washes away the impurities from chemicals and industrial activities.”
Text by Zoë Gray. All quotations of the artist taken from the accompanying book Monsoon Melody.
