SERENDIPITY II from October 3 – 7, 2019
On the walls, visitors found what curator Fiorenza De Monti said both artists spent many years away from their original homes and were drawing their inspiration from memories.
The curator Fiorenza De Monti (middle) with the two artists.
Indeed, inspired from Frédérique Stref’s and Kieu Hanh Morel’s serendipitous encounter in Singapore, the exhibition featured abstract and figurative works stemming from the artist’s memories and experiences. Both of them grew up in creative environments. Morel learnt to draw from her architect father and this skill heavily informs her current practice of painting from photographs. Stref spent her childhood in her father’s glass-making workshop in Nancy, where she became fascinated with the spellbinding translucent density of Pâte de verre, a fascination that later influenced her to turn to encaustic painting.
Morel’s oil and acrylic paintings express a nostalgia for her homeland through idealised depictions of its rural world and inhabitants, in the traditional Vietnamese figurative style. Stref’s encaustic paintings capture the impressions gathered by her senses in the different countries she visited, resulting in images that are both abstract and tangible.
The exhibition brought together artworks inspired from different cultural backgrounds, sensibilities and techniques, which confront the viewer with personal outlooks on the world.
Climbing the steps up and emerging into space dominated by light and permeated by sounds of visitors interacting with art, you knew you’re at Selegie Arts Center.
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