“In Search of Soundlessness” (Poets: swallow seeds to grow better Hearts)

dried seeds
from a dead flower
someone wants to swallow these
dried seeds
from a dead flower

a discordant melody sounds
from those dangerously elegant modern ruins
built of shards of glass, reflecting
a shattered moon upon ancient waters

dried seeds
ricochet off frozen ground

shredded ribbons of sunlight
ribbons that create a softly blinding nest
wrapped around her neck

a strong perfume
pushes most eyes closed

most eyes lack
lack the strength of desire
for dead flowers and
dried seeds

will you listen? Seedlings of Hearts:
understand my words
swallow my poems
then discard me
disdain me
all for growing better hearts
to become better poets


a collector
maybe even
a Genghis Khan of poets’ hearts

Croisements, by Thierry Mugny/ tchegg TM. via Couleurs.

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seeds are hearts, then inside creates the outside——
...all are in search of soundlessness

*(originally published on 22/May/2013)

Bui Huu Hung’s Lacquered Noble Women

Bui Huu Hung was born in Hanoi in 1957. He graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1975 and began his study of traditional lacquer techniques after graduation. In 1986, he established the Nha Son Studio in Hanoi. The studio, located in a traditional wooden house on stilts, is home to a number of young lacquer artists who share the work space while developing their own styles.

Hung's works are varied but center around a common theme of recollection. He believes that new events, impressions and knowledge are built upon life's historical foundations. He strives to preserve the past by blending it with present day elements so that "it does not become reduced to lifeless words without visual detail."

Hung's works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. His works are in the permanent collections of the Orient Museum of Russia, the Singapore Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum in Melbourne. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, Bui Huu Hung's haunting paintings tell a hundred stories." (Heritage Magazine, August 1998.)


{*Text via: Toriizaka Art}

絲縷: Hong Chun Zhang's "Long Hair"

These extraordinary paintings by Chinese artist Hong Chun Zhang (張春紅) caught my eye, and my heart, instantly. Perhaps it is a combination of my own very long hair (at the moment it is even longer than the artist's!), a love for Japanese horror cinema (ah... the ever so beautiful Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi－scroll down to see the video clip), and an infatuation with East Asian calligraphy (the colour scheme of black and white), that made me feel compelled to write a blog post on her art, so that it may be neatly recorded in my collection of beloved inspirations.

Although rather different, Hong Chun Zhang's paintings of long hair in a way remind me of French artist Christian de Laubadère's Necks series, another favourite artist of mine whose works so enchant me. I find in both their paintings a kind of stillness and quiescence that is refined, elegant, simultaneously demure, mysterious and sensual. Imagine something being more inviting by closing the door. Something that says so much more by being silent.


"These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8.5ft (mid detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (left detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (right detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (each), charcoal on paper.

Twin Spirits #1 (2002), 4ft x 10ft (each), charcoal on paper.

Twin Spirits #2 (2002), 5ft x 20ft, charcoal on paper.

In her own words, "Twin Spirits are large charcoal hair drawings, self-portraits of my twin sister and me. I use long hair to exaggerate our major characteristic and as a metaphor to reveal something that is beyond the hair. These drawings are presented as scroll paintings in order to accentuate the length of the piece and the flow of long hair. The larger than life-size scale creates a three-dimensional effect that extends the meaning beyond the surface. My most recent drawings and paintings on hair, however, is a new approach from personal to more universal. This time, long hair is meant to examine a woman’s complete life cycle." (via)
 

生命之縷 Life Strands (2004), 5ft x 30ft, charcoal on paper.

生命之縷 Life Strands (2004), 5ft x 30ft (side view), charcoal on paper.

Black Hair, from Kwaidan (1964), directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

Christian de Laubadère

The short Miami jaunt this past weekend saw my encounter with artist Christian de Laubadère's exquisite series of works The Necks—paintings that are filled with delicate, feminine regalness and sensual sophistication—displayed at the Setai Hotel. It was an instant love affair which has left me entranced and besotted still now. The neck (in particular the nape), along with hands, are what I consider to be the most beautiful, narrative and poetic parts of a woman's body. Christian de Laubadère combines the nape with intricately detailed depictions of different hairstyles through Chinese history (especially those of the Tang and Qing dynasties), and a subtle hint of colours in vintage embroidered/printed fabrics or lace which he sources from China as well as France, to evoke a sense of faded, ethereal, mysterious grandeur, hearkening back to a poetical world of nostalgia.

The Necks 2003-2006
The Necks 2007-2008
Christian de Laubadère exhibition at the Stephanie Hoppen Gallery, London.

(Above two) Christian de Laubadère's paintings as displayed at Hotel Setai, Miami.





About the Artist (text taken from his official website)

Christian de Laubadère began living and working in Shanghai in 2001.

The series of 137 paintings displayed in the Hotel Setai (Miami) and the most recent 21 paintings shown in Shanghai are a reflection of Christian's fascination with the sophistication and sensuality of women, past and present. He paints on paper and canvas using lead pencils, smoke and charcoal as well as printed and embroidered fabric selected from China and France.

His signature in Chinese characters is "Lu" (麓 foot of the mountain) and "Mi" (冪 power) directly translated from a nickname of his childhood "Loumi" which means "my favourite one" in French dialect from Gascogne province.