Annysa Ng “Circle With Radius Of Zero”

China 2000 Fine Art

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CHINA 2000 FINE ART (enter at 1556 Third Ave, Suite 601) presents six recent paintings by Annysa Ng, a New York-based, Hong Kong-born artist with extraordinary breadth and depth of vision. In the exhibition, Circle with Radius of Zero, Annysa Ng addresses the coexistence of separate identities, the inherent ineffability of the void, the cycle of birth and rebirth, the conscious and unconscious mind, and the transient, intangible, and invisible force of death that enlightens the meaning of life. Annysa Ng’s art vibrates to the rhythm of such profound philosophical reflection that it challenges the intellect and engages the viewer. And yet it is the visual beauty, grace and delicacy of her artwork that make these potent musings, restrained by a fierce splendor, even more powerful.

One of Annysa Ng’s constant motifs is the circle or oval which appears in every painting as the form of a face, an Elizabethan ruff, a mirror, or other expressions of this shape without beginning or end. The circle, which evokes an infinite series of endless successions, paradoxically denotes zero or nothing. But this void or absence of anything is not nothingness. Like dark matter whose existence and properties influence the universe’s large-scale structure, the formation of galaxies, and the entire cosmos, it garners great importance in our world. Zero may symbolize naught, but as a numerical placeholder, it changes the value of everything.

This philosophical contemplation of the nature of the circle as both all-inclusive and void-like is expressed vividly in “Oval Portrait.” Here an oval image of an Asian beauty is encircled by an Elizabethan ruff, like a restraining collar, an apt metaphor for Hong Kong identity. She is placed beside another oval, a mirror which should be reflective. But what we see in this mirror is not an image of the physical appearance of this beauty but an echo of the absence of a tangible something that is the nothingness of the soul. This very special mirror reflects the intangible, the unreflective, and the essence that is part of everything reduced to a nothingness that is the transcendence of desire. In order to express ideas that are practically inexpressible, Annysa Ng draws together an assemblage of her signature silhouette portraits, daily found objects, and the erasable chalk writing of a mathematical equation, a verse, or a lyric, which casts a flicker on the cornea and then submerges into the unconscious, speaking to the unseen, the immaterial, the tenderness and the fragility of life and death in all its proud, gossamer beauty.