From Sharne Wolff…
In the gallery windows at the lower end of lively Llankelly Place, are several tantalising images. Part of the show My Sisters and Other Ghosts, the exhibition features Singaporean and Thai artists Genevieve Chua, Imhathai Suwatthanasilp and Bussaraporn Thongchai. Having spent a couple of years undertaking a residency in Bangkok and curatorial positions at recent Singapore Biennales, curator Jasmin Stephens invited the three women artists to take part in this show. While the artists have never met, each of their practices asserts a strong feminist identity. Here the women were asked to respond to traditional mythologies and ghost stories that float across the Southeast Asian region, unshackled by national borders.
Suwatthanasilp’s See True No. 2 appears in the Gallery window. In a black and white photograph of the artist and her twin sister, a twisted handmade net woven from the artist’s hair connects each woman via her eyeglasses. Both this work and a number of Suwatthanasilp’s Dreamcatcher wall works – each constructed from four coat hangers to represent the artist and her three sisters – employ fallen hair to symbolise identity and rebirth following the death of their father. Somewhat resembling hair, Tillandsia Usneoides is an air plant species depicted in white ink draped or balanced between a pair of hands in a pair of Chua’s works of the same title. Also known as ‘Spanish Moss’ or ‘Old Man’s Beard’, the epiphyte is a survivor and like the ‘props and speculations’ of Chua’s Child and the Beast images represents subversion and unseen forces at play. Making its first appearance in My Sisters and Other Ghosts is Thongchai’s curiously compelling three metre drawing A Woman and A Big Fish. Continuing the young artist’s fearless approach to body and sexuality, this large piece (along with two smaller works) expresses the artist’s personal perspective on the position of women in family and Thai society.
Until October 17
The Cross Art Projects, Kings Cross
Pic: Bussaraporn Thongchai, Woman and a big fish, 2015, studio view, crayon on paper, 1500 x 3300 cm (unframed). Courtesy the artist and The Cross Art Projects.
