rhetorical landscape
HA MANH THANG X SHIU SHENG HUNG
22 SEP - 21 OCT 2016
RHETORICAL LANDSCAPE brings together works by two artists - Ha Manh Thang (Vietnam) and Shiu Sheng Hung (Taiwan) who use abstraction of landscape as a response to modernisation, temporality and memory with respect to their native environments.
Both Ha and Shiu use traditional media yet deploy unconventional artistic methods to create works that, depending on the vantage point and lighting conditions, transform visually as viewers move around them.
The exhibition explores the concept of landscapes being a rhetorical representation embodying not only the physicality but the transient spirituality of a place and as once remarked by Henri-Frédéric Amiel ‘Any landscape is a condition of the spirit…’
Ha Manh Thang’s latest series "The Lake" explores the relationship of “shui” or water as part of the philosophy of Feng-Shui in relation with traditional architectural buildings in the context of societal and cultural changes. Ha depicts the landscape in subdued tones using oil and acrylic paint, creating horizontal and vertical textured stripes with the palette knife. The lake is represented symbolically as an oval in the lower third of the canvas. Referencing archival plans, Ha etches fine drawings of traditional buildings that have particular cultural significance such as temples, pagodas or communal houses above the lake. Perceived initially as a flat painting, the viewer experiences how the indiscernible silhouette of the building seems to appear and becomes aware of its three-dimensional impact only by walking closer to the work. The delicate and transient nature of the etched structure, symbolical of culture and tradition, points to its fragility and disappearance in a rapidly modernising society.
In his "Landscape" series, Shiu Sheng Hung explores the boundaries between memory and temporality through the reconstruction of photographic images onto canvases. Turning to the landscapes in his native Taiwan, Shiu’s work is the result of an intense process of rediscovery and transformation of physical places into voids of imagination, interpretation and revelation. By selectively overlaying pearlescent paint that changes in visual appearance depending on the vantage point, the artist introduces a notion of evanescence and unpredictability to the nature of memory in the recalling of specific events and the impression of places.
透過抽象的表現手法，《意象風景》以不同角度觀看當代風景，其中涉及題材包括現代化、想像空間、季節轉變及時間與記憶。 兩位藝術家均以傳統物料追溯過去，但當中使用的技巧有別傳統－於厚塗的油彩上雕刻及以壓克力及珠光顏料重建相片影像，營造優雅、含蓄而強烈的感覺。觀者被邀請走動或移近作品，以飽覽、了解並沈浸於這些風景當中。
何孟勝的作品慣以剛勁的風格去表達社會政治議題。 在新的《湖上烟波》系列（2015），他以湖泊作為中心題材，暗喻越南正在逝去的傳統文化及建築象徵。同時，他透過對於四季、天氣及每天變化的觀察，帶出湖泊千變萬化的一面。他使用的顏色營造了璀璨卻敦厚的色調，讓他的作品洋溢著感性及增添情感上的深度。
許聖泓於特定地點拍攝照片作為參考再繪製，以表達時間與記憶的主題。在《風景圖》系列（2015）， 許以繪畫形式表達時間與記憶之間的朦朧關係。作品靈感來自家鄉台灣的風景，並重新發現及轉化風景為想像、詮釋和啟示的空間。另外，他也從中抒發了繪畫作為媒介為自身所帶來的靈感。
這次展覽的作品揭示風景代表著不同地方的物質性和靈性的概念，最終，也是對不存在主義提出的疑問。
「任何景觀都是一種精神狀態」-亨利·佛雷德里·阿米爾