- Venue
- Asia House Cafe
- Location
- London
The new body of work by Wuon-Gean Ho has its first viewing at Asia House Café in London this June, after which it will travel to Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Canada. Masks Unmasked presents a series of large silkscreen prints that are both accosting and intriguing. It is immediately evident that these images are portraits; however the faces seem perturbed, scratched, smeared, and distorted.
My initial impression of these distorted, seemingly mutilated faces was one of brutality: mouths are open; perhaps screaming, eyes are hidden; blinding the gaze, and expressions are pain stricken. However, with the use of vibrant colour these negative impressions are reduced, and as one draws closer, the brutality wanes to reveal pensive and dream-like imagery. In addition to the bold, aggressive markings, we begin to see organic, flowing, and feathered details. It is as though every individual history or memory has created its own wrinkle. A sense of calm is infused in these works. It is evident that all the faces are women, and though they seem plagued with a beast-like nature, they exude elegance and poise. Extended contemplation brings the finer details to the foreground, and in so doing, reveals a tenderness that was initially hidden.
The details in these prints are simultaneously elegant and claustrophobic: there is primarily a sense of trying to digest too much information at once, and that it is thus difficult to build a comprehensive understanding of the portraits. This overload is what makes the prints so accosting and unforgiving. Nevertheless, as one looks deeper into the image, transferring one’s point of focus, the shapes begin to shift, and the hundreds of tiny details work together in a completely different way: they become a united front – a united face – a personality.
The simple form of the face initially appears to have been confused by a mask of spidery thoughts. Perhaps it is actually the other way around …The complicated form of the face-as-mask has been simplified by revealing personal thoughts and experiences.
Masks Unmasked presents an amalgamation of the internal with the external; of the physical with the emotional. Perhaps one could describe these works as the mapping of the mind’s anatomy; a visual story of an emotional experience. Issues of identity are raised – of what one chooses to hide in order to present a social façade. It is easy to relate to these pieces- they are harrowing and tender, and promote an incredible empathy.
Mask, by its very definition is a ‘false face’, and the theory of the mask is to disguise. So in turn one must ask what it means to unmask a mask. Will one simply reveal what is behind the mask? Or will one reveal the fundamental meaning of what it is to mask? Ho has brought the underlying to the surface, and yet, although it is here for us to see, it still remains elusive. The face-as-mask may have been unmasked, and frankly laid open, but in so doing it has also revealed a new, more complicated layer – perhaps even a new mask.
