Truc-Anh, “Méduse” (part of the Ink Kingdom series)
Discolored India ink and oil pastel on handmade Nepalese Lokta paper
2021
100 x 71 cm
(unframed)
Truc-Anh creates mental images, filled with ambiguous forms and narratives that destabilize our initial perceptions.
Painting and drawing are his way of questioning the relationship of representation to the existence of things, whether they are fantasized or anchored in a tangible reality.
In a contemporary world totally saturated with images, painting and drawing for the artist, is a means of observation and understanding of this phenomenon. As a result, for him it is about fighting image with the image.
Drawing, through its spontaneity and free gesture, takes on a shamanic dimension by revealing hidden forms and allows Truc-Anh to capture a multitude of visual sources randomly encountered on the internet, in books, or periodicals.
His series Ink Kingdom displays an accumulation of portraits in which he depicted the spiritual presence of known and unknown characters.
“During my exhibitions, my goal is to challenge the viewer by creating visual puzzles. Some people are reluctant to my work because they do not understand it, others rejoice for the same reasons. (…) The artwork maintains a balance of power, a mixture of repulsion and seduction, with the viewer. (…) There is more to see in what you don’t want to see. It is here, at the frontiers of what is possible, that we have to open our eyes.”
Truc-Anh graduated from ECAL, Haute Ecole d’Art et Design in Switzerland, and La Cambre, National School of Visual Art in Belgium, where he subsequently taught.
His works have been exhibited in Europe, Asia and USA and are part of private and public collections including the Espace Lausannois d’Art Contemporain and the Artist Pension Trust in Beijing.
Truc-Anh has been subject to articles in various national and international newspapers such as Hyperallergic, Le Monde, L.A Times, Asia Art Pacific and the Wall Street International.
He lives and works in Marseille, France.
