Tony Guo – My Body Is A Cage, Oil on canvas, 500x620mm; Veins, Oil on canvas, 575x1050mm; The Battlefield, Oil on canvas, 1200x1200mm.
Doria Zhu, Hollow in the Air, Sound installation.
2 December – 14 February
Little Gallery, Boardroom, and Photography Gallery
Ko te kore The void of emptiness
Te kore-te-whiwhia The intangible void
Te kore-te-kerekere The unseen void
Te kore-te-taumaua The boundless void (1)
From the nothing the begetting:
From the nothing the increase:
From the nothing the abundance:
The power of increasing, the living breath
It dwelt with the empty space,
It produced the firmament which is above us. (2)
“The concept of becoming is a dynamic process that evolves in space and time, expressing the dynamic nature of human interaction, interplay and relation with the world. What (is) intrinsically decisive is how the individual’s thinking emerged through the response to the(ir) surroundings.” (3)
“There is a harmonious play between humour and discomfort, rationality and absurdity, giving form to a site that steps out of the confinements of duality and merges them together.” (4)
In their play, respectively, with light and colour and shape and form, artists Doria Zhu and Tony Guo question the mechanisms of our response to the chosen realities of our lived experience and how we understand and inhabit the worlds in which we choose to live. In exploring “a co-dependent path between art and technology” Zhu questions “inalienable bodily potential, experiential embodiment and why bodies and meaning come to matter”. (5) Guo “seeks to strike the deeper chords of human experience” working “through the lens of a storyteller by conjuring up moments stored deep in subconsciousness and connecting mismatched pieces of dreams and memories.” (6)
There is a kind of contemporary, yet timeless, mythic magic evident in the contemplative structures that both artists have uncovered in the creation of their work. This magic reminds us that layers of reality exist beyond our everyday consciousness and if we can still our minds they are there too, for us to inhabit.
Warren Pringle – Curator
ABOUT TONY GUO
Tony Guo was born and resides in Auckland, New Zealand. He is studying towards a Bachelor of
Visual Arts majoring painting at Auckland University of Technology.
2020 – Emergent: See , Lake House Arts Centre, Auckland
2019 – Accept Each Word Spoken with Love , North Art Gallery, Auckland
2019 – Molly Morpeth Canaday Award finalist exhibition, Whakatane library and exhibition centre, Whakatane
2019 – First Thursdays Festival, Karangahape Road, Auckland
2018 – 3.15 Westlake Art show, Lake Arts centre, Auckland
2018 – National Youth Art Award finalist exhibition , Waikato Society of Arts, Hamilton
2018 – Greater Auckland Art Award exhibition, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland
2017 – National Youth Art Award finalist exhibition, Waikato Society of Arts, Hamilton
ABOUT DORIA ZHU
Doria Zhu (Chinese: 朱文佳琪) was born and grew up in Beijing. She is currently a sculpture student at the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology.
2019 – First Thursday Festival, Karangahape Road, Auckland
2019 – Fluid Borders, Audio Foundation, Auckland
2019 – Accept Each Word Spoken with Love, North Art Gallery, Auckland
Endnotes:
(1) Samuel T. Robinson, Tohunga – The Revival – Ancient Knowledge for the Modern Era (Penguin Group NZ 2008), 19.
(2) Richard A. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui: New Zealand and Its Inhabitants (London: William Macintosh, 1870), 109-10.
(3) Doria Zhu – Artist’s Statement, AUT, AD19 2019.
(4) Tony Guo – Artist’s Statement, AUT, AD20 2020.
(5) Doria Zhu – Artist’s Statement, AUT, AD19 2019.
(6) Tony Guo – Artist’s Statement, AUT, AD20 2020.