FOST Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Phi Phi Oanh entitled Palimpsest (10 May – 29 June 2014). 

Palimpsest is a sculptural light installation consisting of layered ‘skins’ of lacquer painting that are projected through glass slides. These projected paintings are reminiscent of images seen through a telescope or microscope. The images present a macro or micro view of the universe invisible to the naked eye if not for the aid of a lens. The projections onto translucent silk screens are superimposed images creating an atmospheric phantasmagorical space.

With Palimpsest, Oanh continues to expand on Vietnamese lacquer painting, a medium central to her practice. She employs these experimentations with lacquer painting as a field of artistic research through which to explore new relations between art history, socio-political context, memory, contemporary thought and to form new ways of interpretation and assemble meaning. 

This installation plays with the potential of lacquer painting in a dematerialised form to reflect the way we view the world today. The lacquer ‘skin’ is a concept and technique that Oanh developed of the lacquer image without its traditional surface. In this installation, the ‘skins’ are to be projected through redesigned and lacquered medium-format projectors onto silk screens. This allows her to create a poetic encounter with the medium of lacquer. This constant shifting of perspectives and preference for seeing through an apparatus or a machine reflects the condition of our understanding reality in this contemporary age of science and technology. 

The projectors have been retrofitted with energy efficient LED lights. Emitting little heat and no UV rays, this light source will not damage the lacquer ‘skins’. Each projector is a self-standing sculptural object with its own stand.

The intertextual but regionally and culturally specific nature of this work also complements the exhibition No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia opening at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Gillman Barracks.