Sopheap Pich’s recently works from Kunming

Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich’s recently works from Kunming

Opening:Jan 5,2008,20:00
Exhibition Duration:Jan 5, 2008 — Mar 29, 2008
Address:TCG Nordica,xibalu 101,Kunming,Yunnan,China
Tel:0871-4114692,4114961
www.tcgnordica.com
TCG Nordica Gallery

Artist statement:I started to make my first sculpture two years after having moved back to my birth country, Cambodia, six years ago. I spend most of my childhood in the United States.

Collectively, my sculptures are forms that reflect on the theme of the boarder: between the interior and the exterior. The shapes are echoes or reflections of my experiences of someone whose life has always been in transition and feeling like there’s no permanent home. I think often about current situation in Cambodia it’s development, and it’s difficulties.

My main materials are rattan, bamboo, and metal wire , the stuff that is common and cheap in Cambodia. My tools are simple: razorblades, knives, axes, pliers, a blowtorch.

The manual labor allows me the time to contemplate on the forms and my relationship to it. This relationship between the viewer and the form is what matters most to me, and each pieces are open to interpretations by the viewer.

Kaarina Ormio: chinoiserie

Opening:Jan 5,2008,20:00
Exhibition Duration:Jan 5, 2008 –Mar 6, 2008
Address:TCG Nordica,xibalu 101,Kunming,Yunnan,China
Tel:0871-4114692,4114961
www.tcgnordica.com
TCG Nordica Gallery

The Finnish artist Kaarina Ormio is spending 5 months in Kunming.

artist statement:
I work with the theme “chinoiserie”. This historical art style from the rococo time means European eager for the Chinese based on exotic fantasies. The Finnish Chinese-translator Pertti Nieminen has said about “chinoiserie”: “The fairytale “The Nightingale” of H.C. Andersen was as good an information as decorative pictures on English porcelain plates.

In Kunming I sew “Chinese princess dresses” that are based on my European fantasies, they are a mixture of the European and the Chinese. They are also real, wearable dresses.

I have worked with different media like performance, book, film,installation, dresses, but mostly for the same theme, where the traveling fairytale princess always appears in one way or another. She is like a western explorer and imperialist, but in a mild and a bit playful sense. I try to sew the “Chinese princess dresses” on the basis of the local taste with a wish to conform with an unfamiliar culture. When conquering a country I also become conquered myself. By sewing a dress in a strange country and dressing up in it I try to get inside the strangeness.

Kaarina’s website
Kaarina’s blog in Kunming(GFWed)