Between what we see and what we would like to see, between mirage and reality, between light and shadow, between the full and the empty, the paintings of The Crossing series are a powerful and poetic plastic research of what binds Bao Vuong to his lost country.
His black monochromes are the projection of the trauma of his family's exile, nights on the high seas experienced by thousands of boat people and by countless migrants to this day. Inspired by the terrors and sadness that accompany exile, Bao Vuong uses large masses of black paint, with which he painstakingly sculpts and draws each wave like a litany, a mantra.
By moving in front of the painter's canvases, we live a visual and introspective experience. The reflections on these black reliefs remind us of our inner light, the very one that guides us in the darkest moments of our lives and pushes us to move.
For this new exhibition “HORIZONS”, Bao Vuong has added incense sticks. In form of burnt ashes in the paintings, the incenses represent the clouds which sometimes hide the light of the stars.
