Latest work in progress

Woke up today at 8:30 and had to make this piece in my bedroom. Here it is in the studio. I was very intrigued in using photographs with rice- usually Ive been using objects, placed compositionally on a mark of rice to explore relationships and narrative in history. I like the idea of delicately placing a photograph/memory on a bed of rice..theres a fragility and delicateness about it that i want to exploit further. I guess with this work i am trying to move on from 'the journey' of moving from vietnam to the UK. The spontaneous and loose marks made in the boat series are now more static, confined and rigid..I wanted to explore life after the diaspora from vietnam, I felt that it was more about settling in and calling a new place such as the UK 'home', so i wanted confined and grounded panels of rice.  They also act as a 'frame' of past events, I wasn't sure how to present this..either panels in a horizontal line in which the viewer approaches and walks through linear, or like below. Theres a relationship between the lightness of the photograph on top of a weighted groundedness of the rice. These contrasting elements are definitely something i want to explore further.

I always was interested in making 'site specific' work which was rooted in a sense of home or place. For now, the composition above allows the viewer into a small intimate space in which they can discover the piece..possibly even crouch down and see detail in the photographs..I am interested in pushing the area of fragility further..hopefully i can find some sort of strength from this aspect. I am quite aware of the narrative of this piece, i wanted to mix it up a bit and so tried the below as well:

Heres some close up images. They were from a family trip to Los angeles. From this journey, I felt like it was the closest feeling i could get to being in vietnam. There was a little vietnamese city there, i was only 8 years old but it felt like a home away from home. Close ups are below and i'll leave it as that for now x

Foundation 2009 developments

This is the main piece of work I produced last year on my foundation. Last year, the idea was about the struggle and journey from the vietnam war from my parents generation to reach the UK or any other country. Ideas of war migrants crossing vast expanses of water to reach safe land really intrigued me. I was really interested too in the methods of mark making and not leaving a permanent stained brushstroke (like you would on a painting). I wanted something in motion/ in development which could be easily moved or in flux between stillness and movement. I kind of liked that looseness but now looking back it could be seen as quite a fragile thing. The temporarility of the mark is quite interesting to me now and is definitely someting I want to push and make more evident- I guess this is because I have been feeling like this now, especially surrounding ideas of identity, culture and 'ethnicity'. Its all so confusing. Anyways when making this piece I was looking at An My Le, a vietnamese landscape photographer (her work is amazing), and so I was really looking at movement in land, rice paddies, and how land and sea could merge together.

Currently on 1st year at chelsea I've been in very interesting seminars based on art in asia and diaspora artists. Now looking back at the work it definitely is about the huge diaspora movement from Vietnam because of the war, and the fragile movement between homelands. I guess this piece was made for me to understand more about my heritage and past history of my parents generation as I was born in London and didn't really know that much about the Vietnam war. I hope from probing and questioning this area more, I can then develop into understanding where I fit into things and question my own identity and where this generation is going.

All exciting, I'll be making more work to upload soon..will probably upload random scatterings of ideas and observations til then x

1st Post

Welcome to my blog. This is a space for creative ideas, random thoughts and feelings as well as recording developments of work in progress.

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