» True Gold series – Chapter III / No. 19

Sourcing photographic documentations of significant political meetings and protests that influenced the course of history from mass media and archives, then appropriating, dissecting and reassembling them into something new and uncanny, Quy Tong’s work makes it difficult to decipher between the make-believe, the manipulated and the genuine. Transcending time, while also dissolving borders in a global study of political discord, his images appear faded, emphasizing our removal from the original experience. Detached from their separate narratives, Quy Tong re-contextualizes the photographs in a unified presentation of disparate movements. Splotches and stains accentuate the True Blue and True Gold series’ historical tone, while fluid patterns and recurring geometric grids emerge to give a sense of movement and flux. Layers of oil paint become a visual representation for the layers of meaning observers can read into his work, and ultimately compound a feeling of confusion. Texts throughout the work are reversed and pixelated, suggestive of information, true or false, filtering at first through people, then generations, and finally into the present. Identities of people in the photographs are obliterated, and large groups reduced to expressive shapes and lines, as Quy Tong’s focus rests not on the individual but the effectiveness of our collective power.  

(Edited from text excerpts provided by MoT+++)