Vivarium Series

“Vivarium” is a series of lacquer paintings about life observed behind glass. They are still life paintings representing terrarium jars, paludariums, or aquariums, depicting entire habitats and micro landscapes within glass enclosures.

These paintings attempt to capture in lacquer form our relationship to the earth and our will to domesticate and commodify nature around us. The works are conceived as vestiges of this epoch currently hanging in delicate balance and as iconography of its human centered gaze. At the same time what is represented, these small pockets of life, are but an obvious metaphor of our own ecosystem whose atmosphere, like fragile glass, is our only protection against the empty wide universe.

In terms of the medium, here I have tried to explore a type of naturalism in Tranh sơn mài lacquer painting based on repeated direct observation over many days and layers then sanding away like erosion. It is a process that reflects the passage of time as well as fossilizes and preserves these mental and visceral experiences. This continuous material accumulation and subtraction leads to an image of the observed that seems to exist at different moments and times. While not tonally realistic like a photograph, this lacquer realism is more involved with the slippery ever changing experience of sight and of memory...which I consider to be Tranh sơn mài's most interesting potential contribution to the field of painting.

“And Then There Were Six”

Specifically, the series, “And Then There Were Six” is a chronological sequence of the passage of time observed of a single gold fish aquarium that existed “once upon a time”. The name is taken from those picture books used to teach children about numbers and counting down.

Infants start first by learning about object permanence— that the world still exist when eyes are shut. Soon after there are numbers and counting down. With subtraction the lesson about loss is introduced only to be truly grasped with the passage of time and experience.

Phi Phi 2020-2023