» Mother and Daughter 1

Mother and Daughter 1 forms part of an ongoing series by Doan Hoang Lam that looks at the sensuous properties of the human body. The partially rendered human-like shapes in his paintings look as if they are hovering in space or emerging from behind the surface. At times, they seem vulnerable and concealed with their backs to us; but mostly, they stare straight ahead, confrontational and powerful with their bare skin, disembodied figures and provocative positions. Distorted and exaggerated, the body is repeatedly abstracted through the artist’s manipulations of forms and shifts in scale, acting as much a symbol of desire and celebration of beauty as an object of fetish and embodiment of violence. Here, the familiar is made uncanny. Just a degree or two away from reality, we are left in an uncomfortable position, our senses toyed with, and our perceptions of affection/abjection, normality/abnormality, morality/immorality disrupted and questioned. 

(Edited from text excerpts provided by Manzi)