FACE NO FACE

VSF is pleased to present FACE NO FACE, Anna Sew Hoy’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

 
FACE NO FACE explores the beauty and horror of veils lifted. Each sculpture contains its own empty space manifesting a shocking void, an open closet in the dark, or a wide-open mouth. The works take as their starting point Sew Hoy’s public sculpture Look-See recently installed in Kings Road Park, West Hollywood. Like Look-See, these works are coil-built stoneware installed outdoors in VSF’s outdoor gallery. However,Look-See has a mirror-face, which reflects the surrounding park; these new works are often not finished with a mirror, enabling us to enter their strange rooms. A few works in the exhibition omit the room, and are only windows to look through or arms holding empty space.

 
In VSF’s Project Gallery, Sew Hoy creates a bedroom containing objects in states of undress. Here is a language of lines where the extruded coil of clay forms a symbol. On the wall are a series of loose knots, pictograms of different anatomies. Denim sleeves wrap various sections to create a wordless sentence or different dress options. A coil-built hat rests on the floor beside a flayed and filleted pair of jeans.

 
“In FACE NO FACE a single form is made again and again until a specific body comes into focus. Creation is not originality but seriality. One thing comes from another; traits are passed. With each repetition something new is attempted, pushing the process along. Time loops as you walk between versions of the same shape. My sculptures ask: what is this space created over and over? There is a viewfinder that frames a passing elbow and then just the ground below. The bottomless space in an empty hat is a lost trail. It is a black hole where air is compressed and dense. There are cathedral spaces that could be the inside of your head. Each clay body is a planet, and their gravity pulls the viewer through the universe.” -ASH