INSTALLATIONS
yab yum 2001 AGNSW
Tim Johnson, , My Le Thi, Karma Phuntsok,and Daniel Bogunovic
Dhyani Buddhas, 2001 synthetic polymer paint on linen 198.0 x 823.5 cm
Courtesy of the Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.
My Le Thi Installation 2001 (foreground).
AGNSW Press release
| A new collaborative installation by Tim Johnson (Australia, born 1947) and My Le Thi (Vietnam/Australia, born 1964), will be on view in the Contemporary Projects Gallery at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the exhibition Buddha. The exhibition is titled after the Tibetan Buddhist term yab yum, meaning father-mother union - symbolising the uniting of wisdom and compassion. Having both wisdom and compassion are keys to enlightenment, as embodied by the Buddha Shakyamuni, enabling a role as intermediary between nirvana and this world. There is a strong element of compassion in the artists’ work expressed through their interest in cultural collaboration and understanding. Elements of yab yum include a large multi-panelled painting to which Karma Phuntsok, Daniel Bogunovic and Edward Johnson have contributed, incorporating images of the Buddha Shakyamuni meditating. The installation also includes life size meditating figures cast from life. The human body and elements, such as hair, feet, bones and clothing, have been important references in Thi’s work, which she sees as transcending cultural differences, representing loss or displacement, or compassion for another’s situation. A sound component interweaves Thi’s singing with Buddhist chants and prayers, creating an aural environment that is both ambient and mystical. yab yum draws on the artists’ and collaborators’ various cultural experiences, including Johnson’s study of Tibetan Buddhism and work with Aboriginal artists in Papunya in the 1980s, and Thi’s memories of her birthplace in the Highlands in Central Vietnam. The artists have said: “It would be great if Australian art could be seen within the context of Aboriginal, Asian, European and American traditions and still have its own identity. Since this is probably impossible, one has to work in a symbolic space, perhaps like the Buddhist Pure Land, or the mandala itself, to create an illusory reality or a virtual reality in which the space that the artwork occupies is revealed to the audience that can read enough signs to begin to unravel its meaning”. |
Parallel Worlds 2003 UTS Gallery
My Le Thi & Tim Johnson
Collaborative Installation
My Le Thi and Tim Johnson bring together paintings, video and installation for their new exhibition Parallel Worlds at UTS Gallery. An elegant ensemble of skeletons, shoes, Buddha’s and UFO's will occupy the gallery as worlds of difference collide and congregate in one place. Their individual artworks often find themselves sharing the same space in collaborative exhibition, most recently in Threads of Destiny at the Mori Gallery and in yab yum at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Parallel Worlds will survey each artists practice over the last 20 years. New paintings and unseen works will be shown with more familiar pieces such as Thi’s Transformation 2000 of cast feet and shoes. Showing together allows a conversational engagement between the works. Thi has been the model for life sized figures in installations by Johnson and likewise, at times, Thi’s papier mâché skeletons appear working on Johnson canvasses.
In Thi and Johnson’s collaborative ventures with others, cultural paths cross to highlight the differences and similarities between various philosophies and belief systems. Johnson is drawn to Buddhist, Eastern, Aboriginal and Native American cultures; these have led him to directly work with Tibetan artist Karma Phuntsok and Papunyan artist Clifford Possum.
Johnson’s paintings carry a muted palette of whites and yellows with flecks of gold; on top of these sit the Buddha’s, portraits of Possum and the odd space visitor. Johnson writes of his work: "Strangely, many older cultures connect the idea of extraterrestrials with gods, law makers and ancestors. When older cultures can shed light on contemporary questions like this, painting can be used to investigate…art can be a conduit for experience and in so doing can actually change things."
Thi's poetic paintings and installations employ common elements; seeds allude to migrations; masks and skeletons to identities; nakedness and shoes to different cultures, places and times.
Other recurring motifs are the four colours white, red, yellow and brown, representing human skin colours, or alternatively, four different directions. Ladders symbolise transformation, a concept drawn from memories of her childhood home in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
AFTER MT MERU 1998 APT Queensland Art Gallery
An installation with 3 paintings, plaster figure, cdrom, glass sphere and 18th century Tibetan banner depicting Mt Meru. Contributions by Karma Phuntsok, My Le Thi and Edward Johnson.
7th HEAVEN 1996 Mori Gallery Sydney
This installation was also included as part of the Colonial Post Colonial exhibition at Heide in Melbourne. This version shows a clothed plaster figure of a Vietnamese woman looking at a painting of a Buddha, and another buddhist figure.
MULTIMEDIA 1993 Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
An installation that used a videotape called "Multimedia" - a series of computer images and drawings, as well as objects from various cultural contexts that included a Sioux Indian shield, an Aboriginal hair string spindle and an Aboriginal shield. There was also a Japanese screen with images from the Book of Revelations.
VISUALISATION 1992 Art Gallery of N.S.W.
An installation with artworks from Aboriginal, Tibetan, Native American and Western cultures.
The installation from the oppposite side of the space. It has a lightbox showing Tim Johnson, Willie Jungarai and Nolan Jabanardi in the Gibson Desert, a Gibson guitar, some collaborative paintings and a 10 album Bob Dylan bootleg set.
VIRTUAL REALITY 1991
This installation used a painting (Eden Burns), a video that showed the painting in extreme closeup, and a statue of a bodhisattva looking at the work. There was also a small potplant with flowers at the feet of the figure. Interestingly when the audience approached the work to look, they always took the figure as if it was real, looking round at it while looking at the painting and moving to one side so as not to obstruct it's views.
AUDIO INSTALLATION 1990 Mori Gallery
An installation that used a painting of a sound system and a table with various Tim Johnson recordings. This included an LP record called Country Blues and various audio tapes.
CENTRAL CORE 1985. Perspecta Art Gallery of N.S.W.
An installation that was part of Michael Dolk's work for one week in Perspecta. The space included a Tibetan Thanka, a Papunya painting, a guitar, Bob Dylan bootleg albums and a TV set.