Meng Du “Embers”

Fou Gallery

poster for Meng Du “Embers”
[Image: Meng Du "I Hope Everything is Fine with You" (2019) Glass, copper foil, 8.1 x 0.2 x 6.1 in.]

This event has ended.

Fou Gallery presents Meng Du’s solo exhibition Meng Du: Embers. The exhibition will present her latest glassworks and installations combining glass and fabric materials. This is the second solo exhibition of Meng Du held by Fou Gallery; it aims to explore the connection between uncertain memories and the present, and between dreams and reality, while attempting to depict the invisible emotions deep in our hearts—the sadness, the fear, and also the hope—which have always existed there, intertwined and fleeting.

The sudden deaths of Du’s grandmother and the husband of a close friend inspired the creation of her Letter and Ripple series, which include nine small pieces, two long Stain / Tiffany glass, and four circular glass mirror Stain / Tiffany glass. Du combined the colored mosaic glass with the mirror, and engraved them with some drawing and common phrases. Stain / Tiffany glass is often used in religious window design because of its translucency. People standing outside the window and looking in can only see the patterns, and can’t see into the interior of the church, while the people inside the can enjoy the magnificent refraction of light through the glass, as though observing a miracle. The mirror has exactly the opposite optical effect - people can only see themselves in front of the mirror, but can’t see the world behind it. The dividing line between the glass and the mirror is like a crease in a letter. A letter to others is actually a letter to oneself. Whether this letter can actually be delivered or not is no longer of consequence. In the endless time, light fills every void—it penetrates through the glass and reflects from the mirrors.

Another series in this exhibition is Embrace, which combines glass and fabric. During her time as an Artist in Residence at the Glass Program at Aichi University of Education in Japan, Du produced some murrine canes, which were wrapped in a thin white outer layer, with a trace of red thread in the middle, and embroidered on mosaic fabric dyed with tea—with sharp sections pierced into the soft fabric. The Embrace series will be hung and float in the gallery space’s air, where the audience may stroll through and directly confront their inner restlessness and quietness, yearning for embrace while expecting distance.

Life is just a series of isolated moments.

With memories and fantasies, many meanings emerge, then disappear, and then reappear.

- Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Media

Schedule

from November 30, 2019 to February 16, 2020

Artist(s)

Meng Du

  • Facebook

    Reviews

    All content on this site is © their respective owner(s).
    New York Art Beat (2008) - About - Contact - Privacy - Terms of Use