SAVANHDARY VONGPOOTHORN ALL IS BURNING
26 June - 20 July 2014
MARTIN BROWNE CONTEMPORARY 15 HAMPDEN STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021 TEL: 02 9331 7997 FAX: 02 9331 7050 info@martinbrownecontemporary.com www.martinbrownecontemporary.com GALLERY HOURS: TUESDAY - SUNDAY 10:30AM - 6PM
Lotus VI, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm
LIST OF WORKS Lotus VI, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm Lotus I, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm Lotus V, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm For You, 2013, acrylic on perforated canvas, 100 x 120 cm All is Burning, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 120 x 100 cm Lotus IV, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 45 x 45 cm Lotus III, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 46 x 46 cm Lotus II, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44 x 44 cm Fire Sutta (eye), 2013-2014, Japanese paper and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm Fire Sutta (mind), 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 120 x 100 cm Fire Sutta (ear), 2013-2014, acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm Fire Sutta (body), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm Fire Sutta (tongue), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm Fire Sutta (nose), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
Fire & Light – Recent works by Savanhdary Vongpothoorn “In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternity figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.” Carl G. Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections1 The current exhibition All is Burning takes its principal inspiration from key Theravada Buddhist teachings, in particular the Buddha’s ‘Fire’ Discourse (Ādittapariyāya Sutta, Pali) and ‘The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Awareness’ (Mahāsatipatthāna Sutta, Pali). The exhibition represents Vongpoothorn’s most spiritual art journey yet, a more focused exploration, through her art, of the Buddhist philosophical traditions and practice which has regularly featured throughout her artistic practice. Indeed it is an unequivocal embrace and awareness of the spiritual and in many ways it is timely in the context of changes and developments in the artist’s life. If at first we register the notion of ‘burning’ as the fiery incineration and destruction of life reduced to ashes, Vongpoothorn’s works suggest that it is also a process of extinguishing or a ‘letting go’ of physical attachment to the world, which in Buddhist philosophy is key to the path of Enlightenment. As it is for other cultural traditions, burning in this sense is also a regenerative process which brings forth new life, a marker for renewal and rebirth. In the “Fire Sermon” Discourse the Buddha preaches about liberation from suffering in the world through detachment of the bodily senses and the mind: The Buddha begins, “Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?” The Buddha’s sermon goes on to describe the way people tend to experience the world through an unthinking dependence on their six senses (the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind): “The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs. “The ear is burning, sounds are burning... “The nose is burning, odours are burning... “The tongue is burning, flavours are burning... “The body is burning, tangibles are burning... The Buddha essentially points to the lack of mindfulness in the way people approach and encounter the world, often acting impulsively and reactively, and becoming all too easily entrapped by a web of unchecked moods and emotions – and thus, ‘burning’ out of control. Significantly the moment of clarity which is ‘seeing’, for the Buddha, is analogous to the fire which is transformed into light, a harnessing of the generative possibilities of fire. For when there is light there is true vision, true awareness and mindfulness in approaching the world, ultimately pointing to the possibility of detachment from the senses and the mind. It is through such detachment that acceptance of life’s impermanence and the inevitability of change becomes possible, an acknowledgement of the transience of all earthly life which is the prerequisite to Enlightenment. 1
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (edited by Aniela Jaffe; Vintage Books, New York, 1989, p. 324
Vongpoothorn’s All is Burning is, I suggest, the artist ‘seeing’ the world, herself and her art, with a new awareness, clarity and purpose. The works may be interpreted as visual manifestations of Buddhist spiritual purpose and awakening attained through the artist’s focused application of energy and effort in practices of artistic mindfulness and concentration. Both in their geometries and purpose, the works are akin to the spiritual and psychic functions of mandalas – the sacred circular symbols denoting the unity and balance of the cosmos and used as aids to spiritual meditation in Buddhist and Hindu traditions; but also, as utilised in Western psychology via artistic processes that seek to reveal the unconscious or inner self. As with her previous works, Vongpothoorn’s All is Burning is a sustained, meticulous effort, revealing the beauty of form and abstract patterns in dialogue with her personal life phases and trajectory. Vongpoothorn was born in Laos in 1971, and came to Australia in 1979. These two sources of cultural experience have greatly influenced her art practice: Lao textiles and calligraphy, Buddhist philosophy, Australian Aboriginal art, and the Australian landscape, are often woven together and layered through Vongpoothorn’s paintings. All is Burning takes us to other places, in particular India, where the artist has recently spent time absorbing the cross-cultural connections and correspondences between her Lao heritage and Indian cultural, spiritual and aesthetic traditions, especially Hindu and Buddhist equivalences. For the works on paper Vongpoothorn has used handmade sheets made by seventh generation artisans which she sourced directly from workshops in Sanganer in Jaipur. Their textured surface adds a further layer of tactility and humanity to Vongpoothorn’s works. In India Vongpoothorn was also captured by the miniature painting tradition. The careful and detailed work of that tradition has resonances with the kind of sustained, meticulous effort that is characteristic of much of Vongpothoorn’s practice to date. But it has reached another level again in this exhibition. Beneath the more obvious surface-level geometries and iconography presented is a subtler, intricate and complex patterning of repeating lines, dots, and canvas perforations which echoes the focused effort for which the Indian miniature painting tradition is renowned. Indeed Vongpoothorn continues her deep commitment to revealing the beauty of patterns in this series – those of natural and organic formulation, but also deliberate and purposeful configurations. This is through the precise, carefully-painted forms and abstractions that overlay the artist’s canvas, but also via the signature perforations which are burnt into the artist’s canvas material to form a gridded field. Across her paintings the punctures serve as a constant and stabilising matrix but are also testimony to the repetitive, focused energy of Buddhist meditative practice and to her familial and cultural ties – Vongpoothorn’s father, a former Buddhist monk, often collaborates with the artist in preparing her perforated canvases. It was as a result of her trips to India that Vongpoothorn became ‘obsessed with the lotus,’ the principal reoccurring motif across the exhibition. During her travels in India, her encounters with lotus forms at Agra Fort and at the Alchi Monasteries in Ladakh affected her deeply. While contemplating the lotus motifs at Alchi, Vongpoothorn was moved to ponder her dear, long-time friend and Australian painter, the late Roy Jackson, who had been ill before her departure to India. Poignantly, as she later established on returning to Australia, her contemplation of the lotuses at Alchi coincided with the moment that her friend in Australia passed from this earthly life. Vongpoothorn offers the lotus flower in resplendent, mandala-like designs which serve as powerful devices for our visual and affective engagements with each work. Across the series, the more intricate, detailed and repeating patterns find unity and coherence via the overarching lotus form. Moving between the wholeness of the lotus and its parts, the plant is presented across the works in its bold outline while also being playfully deconstructed into an array of lively leaf patterns. For Buddhists, the lotus is a symbol of reincarnation,
regeneration and enlightenment. Similarly for Hindus, as Vongpoothorn explored during her time in India, the lotus symbolises beauty, prosperity and fertility, eternity, purity, and life itself. Across both spiritual traditions, the lotus is symbolic of a life force achieved without attachment, a flower of beauty and purity which rises above its muddy, watery depths. The centrepiece of the exhibition, also entitled All is Burning, is a celebration of life with its constellation of bright pink and yellow lotuses seeming to dance atop of the green waters below them. This vibrant image celebrates the letting go of all things, the beauty which arises from the extinguishing (the burning) of attachment to the world, the latter at the heart of all fear and suffering. Alongside this are other painted works on canvas offering similarly intense hues of deep blood red, brilliant orange and verdant greens. The artist attributes her freer, more dramatic use of vibrant colours directly to her periods of travel in India. Indeed there is a newfound freedom of expression in this series of works. This sense of freedom manifests in two key registers: the first is via the overt liveliness of forms and vibrancy of colours that reverberate across the paintings. It is as if they are visual exclamations of rejoicing and elation, expressing the artist’s new found openness to experiment and take risks in bold colours and striking imagery corresponding to the ‘mind’ passages of the Fire Sutta. The other is achieved by the artist’s quieter, more solemn response to the Buddha’s teachings in the series of works on paper which draw us inward for contemplative reflection. This is a subdued serenity via a gentler palette and focused mediation, each work corresponding to one of the bodily senses in the Fire Sutta: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. While the two registers of expression are superficially different, they are driven by and reflect the same impulse – the Buddhist exploration of detachment and freedom from fear and suffering. All is Burning is the visual manifestation of such freedom through its expression of mindfulness, clarity, purity and therefore, beauty. Various framing structures seen across the works often serve as a platform for the beautiful Lao-Pali script which records excerpts from the Fire and Air suttas. The texts have been translated by Vongpoothorn’s father from Thai-Pali script and Vongpoothorn has then carefully reproduced the texts by hand onto her paintings. Vongpothoorn is particularly proud of her painterly writing skills here: for the first time, she says, her mother has recognised the script as immediately legible and comprehensible. It seems Vongpoothorn has reached new heights with this also. Perhaps then it is the ‘third’ space of India – beyond Australia and Laos – which opens up a new space here for the artist to reflect on the human spirit and issues of universal resonance and connection. For I suggest that while Vongpoothorn’s new work is deeply personal, it is at the same time broader in scope than ever, exploring change as an essential character of human life – impermanence as vital to life itself. The cycle of life – birth, ageing, death and rebirth – emerges as a fundamental theme, intersecting with the artist’s own recent life experiences of late, especially as mother, daughter, friend. The pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Jung explored such key transitional phases of life through his investigations into the human unconscious. Through his own artistic experiments he found the circle to be a reoccurring motif which freely emerged at times of intense personal development, re-balancing and re-centring. Jung was also familiar with philosophical writings stemming from India which prompted him to consider his circle drawings as ‘mandalas’ reflecting his inner state: “I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day…My mandalas were cryptograms…in which I saw the self—that is, my whole being—actively at work.”2 2
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 195-196.
While All is Burning is new territory for the artist, it is also a return, bringing the artist ‘full circle’, back to her artistic beginnings – the concept of the mandala inspired some of her earliest works as an artist. Seen as a series of psychic mandalas, the works across the exhibition are powerful suggestions of Vongpoothorn’s own self-explorations and inner subjectivity. The other force which propels this exhibition is that of ‘air’ and its signification as a moving, shifting energy, intimated in the Buddha’s ‘Great Discourse on the Establishing of Awareness’. Air is the life-sustaining matter of breath, the essential vibrating force of life. It also denotes the cyclical patterns of life and the world of forms, the quality of change that is intrinsic to all life. The vibrating patterns across the works invoke the movement of air, the winds of change, and the reverberations of life itself as a shifting force. All is Burning is a response to the transient nature of belonging to the physical world, and an acceptance of change as a vital, inevitable and therefore also liberating, life force. Acknowledging change is an energizing force for the artist: “… that which is change, to recognise change in order to overcome our suffering and desires.” All is Burning ultimately speaks to the spiritual process of ‘letting go’ and to the recognition of life’s essence as a cyclical reincarnation of all things, changing and ephemeral, and the beauty, strength and light to be found within this. Michelle Antoinette
Lotus I, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm
Lotus V, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 60 x 60 cm
For You, 2013, acrylic on perforated canvas, 100 x 120 cm
All is Burning, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 120 x 100 cm
Lotus IV, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 45 x 45 cm
Lotus III, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 46 x 46 cm
Lotus II, 2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44 x 44 cm
Fire Sutta (eye), 2013-2014, Japanese paper and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
Fire Sutta (mind), 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 120 x 100 cm
Fire Sutta (ear), 2013-2014, acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
Fire Sutta (body), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
Fire Sutta (tongue), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
Fire Sutta (nose), 2013-2014, leaves and acrylic on Sanganer paper, 44.5 x 35.3 cm
SAVANHDARY VONGPOOTHORN 1971 1979 1990-92 1993
Born in Laos Arrived Australia B.A. Visual Arts. UWS Nepean, Sydney M.A. Visual Arts. UNSW College of Fine Arts, Sydney
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Awards and Residencies
2013 2011 2008 2005 2004 2003 2002 2000 2000
2013 2012 2011 2005 2004 2003 2001 2000
The Beautiful as Force, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney Stone down a Well, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Re-enchantment, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney Incantation, Martin Browne Fine Art at The Yellow House, Sydney A Certain Distance, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Martin Browne Fine Art at The Yellow House, Sydney bindi dot tartan zen, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Niagara Galleries, Melbourne King Street Gallery on Burton, Sydney
Australia India Institute Artists' Retreat, Jaipur, India NAVA Janet Holmes a Court Artist's Grant NAVA Janet Holmes a Court Artist’s Grant Artist in Residence, Print Media Workshop, Canberra School of Art, ANU Australia Council Grant, New Work Artist in Residence, Painting Workshop, Canberra School of Art, ANU Australia Council Grant- Tokyo studio residency Royal Over-Seas League travel scholarship Sceggs Redlands Westpac Art Prize 2000
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 2011 2010 2007 2007 2006 2006 2006 2005 2005 2003 2003
Vibrant Matter, Tarra WarraMuseum of Art, Victoria Crossing Paths III, Raft Art Space, Alice Springs Artist Artists, Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia, ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra The Story of Australian Printmaking, National Gallery of Australia Smile of the Buddha, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National Gallery Canberra Zones of Contact, Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney The Tallis Foundation 2006 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery,Victoria Crossing Paths II, Martin Browne Fine Art at the Yellow House, Sydney Echoes of Home: Memory and Mobility in Recent Astral-Asian Art, Museum of Brisbane, Queensland (touring interstate galleries) This and Other Worlds: Contemporary Australian Drawing, National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria Crossing Paths (with Ildiko Kovacs and Roy Jackson), Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney Four, The Holmes à Court Gallery, Western Australia
Collections Allen, Allen and Hemsley, Sydney Art Gallery of New South Wales Artbank, Australia Atanaskovic Hartnell, Sydney Campbelltown City Art Center Holmes à Court collection Jackson Smith Solicitors, Sydney Jim Wolfensohn World Bank Lady Caruthers Collection, WA Macquarie Bank, Australia Monash University, Melbourne, Vic National Gallery of Australia National Gallery of Victoria Queensland Art Gallery Sceggs Redlands Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation University of Western Sydney, (Macarthur), NSW University of Western Sydney, (Nepean), NSW University of Wollongong, NSW Westfarmers collection Various private collections
© Martin Browne Contemporary © All images copyright Savanhdary Vongpoothorn This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. COMPILER: Dean Andersen PHOTOGRAPHY: Stuart Hay COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney PRINTING: Oxygen, Sydney Cover Image: All is Burning, 2014, acrylic on perforated canvas, 120 x 100 cm