Savanhdary Vongpoothorn

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s (b. 1971, Champasak, Laos) body of work in this exhibition makes a physical mark on her experience of finding her grounding after definitive moments in life. Through the use of iridescent and phosphorescent paints the artist seeks to create works that literally glow during the dark times. Phosphorescence II and Phosphorescence III, 2021, serves as a pinpoint in the multitude of life’s dynamism.

The series of paintings draw inspiration from the Australian landscape, particularly the patterns found on scribbly gum trees, which symbolises the difficult and tenuous belonging that the indigenous people have long forged in the Australian bush. These struggles are akin to achieving a sense of belonging against the backdrop of worldly suffering and desires often taught in Buddhism. Such perspectives find resonance with Vongpoothorn's migrant experience in discovering both physical and spiritual connection with her environment and heritage as she settles down in a new home.

The artist finds intention in incorporating her native language, the Lao-Pali text. It appears abstract and fragmented, yet the physical act of applying paint to the canvases transforms brokenness into beauty that contains a light that persists even in a dimming world.

These bring the dualities to play - hurt and healing, light and dark, stillness and movement, draws a thread with the humbling morals of popular Jataka tales of Buddhist folklore. The Naga King (Campeyya Jataka) that the artist hears growing up served as an inspiration in the creation of Broken Sutra (Naga Paths), 2019.

Motherhood is an important transitional part of Vongpoothorn’s life which brought in perspectives of a whole new light to both her life and practice. “It is one of those moments where life can never go back to what it once was, nor do I want it to go back to what it once was”, she recounts. In the painting Rashmi’s Castle I, the repeated “x” and “+” in perforations are restructured and fitted into the form of her daughter’s building blocks and tiles, igniting childhood memories and the fleeting moments of her early life which Vongpoothorn endeavours to both preserve and reminisce.

This exhibition is a powerful allegory of transformation and resilience, assembling the pivotal and significant moments of Vongpoothorn’s life amidst the order of the natural world. It becomes a reminder that while the best possible outcome cannot be demanded, strength can be conjured from within to overcome the challenges and hardships that are encountered in life.

39+ Art Space is pleased to present a two-artist presentation, exhibiting the works of Kemalezedine and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn. Landscape: Reinvention is Vongpoothorn’s first exhibition in Singapore. Living and working exclusively in a single location through our whole lives is no longer a possibility for the contemporary artist. Cultural dissonance, augmented by changing national boundaries from the twentieth century, tracks the uncertain landscapes of belonging for two artists, Kemalezedine (b. 1978, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Lives and works in Bali, Indonesia) and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn (b. 1971, Laos. Lives and works in Australia). Where Kemalezedine negotiates Balinese painting, a part of yet distant to his Indonesian identity, Vongpoothorn traces the contours of a distant Laotian and Asian visuality, a heritage distant to her current Australian landscape.

Landscape: Reinvention brings together two artists who work through their respective geographical and cultural inheritances in the genre of landscape, mapping insistently real yet abstract forms on canvas.