Paper Cages (2001)

I make drawings of communal scenes in ballpoint on giay do (traditionally made rice paper). Old men drinking beer in bia hoi (draught beer stalls), young upwardly mobile café dwellers at the centre of town, tranquil pagoda retreats, mad street corner vendors. I transfer the sketches to larger sheets (40cm x 60cm) using ink.

I sandwich these, in the studio, with further layers of giay do, each containing separate images of simple recurrent objects such as bird cages, rice cookers, ceiling fans. I apply Confucian stamps, temple inscriptions and modern pictograms to the resulting superimposition. Each piece is mounted between glass and backlit.

please choose an image from the left to see a larger version.

The more you look, the more you see,