The art of lacquer is a passion of Oanh Phi Phi, believing its many layered surface, what she refers as its ‘skin’, to hold memory and narrative unlike any other medium. Join Zoe Butt (Curator and Artistic Director of The Factory) on a tour of Oanh Phi Phi’s ‘Interface’ exhibition – get an insight as to why her lacquer installations are immersive, large in scale and ultimately a playful relationship between light, lacquer and movement.
In the work of Oanh Phi Phi, lacquer is a material of not only physical, but also visceral density.
In ‘Interface’ we present two of her major pictorial installations – Specula, an immersive lacquered tunnel akin to stepping in to a glowing womb; and Palimpsest, which personifies tools of producing images (where projections magnifying glass paintings recall the lens structure of a human eye). What is most dazzling about these two ‘paintings as sculptures’ in this exhibition is the suggestion that these artworks are analogous to organs of a body, indeed their ‘shape’, their ‘skin’, their ‘interface’ infers protection, purpose and ultimately, an identity.