PRESS RELEASE
TERRANES—Comparable to the shifting of tectonic plates resulting in the fruition of new variations and geological formations, Anh Thuy Nguyen, Adam Liam Rose and Frank Wang Yefeng’s pieces individually create alternative and well-cultivated perspectives pertaining to political relationships, social dynamics and cultural conflicts by pushing past and against the normalcy that has been cemented and engrained in human consciousness by society. Together, their works interact to produce an immersive infusion: a blend of disparate mediums—sculptures, drawings, and video—that interconnect and inform one another with the underlying commonality of shedding light onto significant and polarizing issues.
Anh Thuy Nguyen’s sculptures focus on the relationship between objects and objects, which act as bodies within a space, in order to “render the aporia of belonging/dis-belonging and togetherness/separation.” In both An Act of Simultaneous Looking and Dependable Distance, the flesh-hued silicone covered objects (pipes and stone respectively) refer to human [fragility] against the harsh steel structures bolstering the forms. While the visceral tension between materials creates striking compositions, the pieces themselves are also meant to be viewed in a performative manner. Nguyen's works require one to imaginatively strap themselves onto or into the forms, prompting a restricting and burdening experience, therefore physically realizing an allegory of spatial relation by means of objects and one's own body.
With encapsulating structures acting as a forefront to Adam Liam Rose’s installations, Stages of Fallout (2019) reveals another interpretation of his works as a series of drawings based on The Family Fallout Shelter (a guide made by the US Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization in 1959). Accessing influence from the political relationship between Israel, Palestine and the United States, his artworks are physical manifestations of his erudite study of “aesthetic systems of power embedded within architecture”. Rose's drawings are intimate and delicate, evoking a sense of a slight voyeuristic gaze into an ambiguous, architectural depiction of rough graphite textures and chiaroscuro contrasts.
[’penthaus], a synchronized video installation on loop, provokes an elaborate stew of emotions: perplexity in conjunction with curiosity, filtered through tension and discomfort. Frank Wang Yefeng’s skilled use of 3D animation in conglomeration with his eery content provides surrealistic and cryptic realms of fantasy and realism. Inspired by a story in the old Chinese book A New Account of Tales of the World, Yefeng’s production of symbols (pig, pants, and house) alludes to his personal experience of moving to the States from China. “The virtual spaces are both macroscopic and microscopic, the time is both moving and still[...]”—the video, similarly to his other works, provides a hallucinatory and ephemeral voyage as the viewers fall into a delusional stupor.