Line by Line by Lu Luo

Description

On Sunday December 8 the first solo exhibition of the Chinese artist Lu Luo will be opened at MPV Gallery in Den Bosch. The exhibition Line by Line shows an extensive selection of recent work, which is characterized by the recurring motif of classical Chinese kimonos and theater costumes from original Chinese theater performances and operas.

While Lu Luo uses the original fabrics of the appealing costumes directly on the canvas in her early work, she gradually develops other methods and visual elements with which she sets out the characteristic shapes, patterns and specific signs that can adorn the garments. For example, the paintings are covered with strips of paper or with parts of pre-printed Chinese cardboard packaging with which she creates a composition of surfaces that evoke associations with the theater performances. The most recent development in Lu Luo’s work consists of the weaving of Chinese silk fabrics, which Lu Luo uses to make big braids. With those braids, she recreates a traditional costume form and sticks this artisan braided form onto the canvas. In a sense, these braids can thus refer to thick yarns that make up the costumes. A new fabric is being created for the recreated kimonos. The whole is post-processed with oil paint and various inks in characteristic bright colours.

By coinciding pronounced colours and form experiments with the kimono form or with other explicit Chinese figurative elements, Lu Luo builds a bridge between Western and Eastern culture. The emphasis on the two-dimensional plane, which is an explicit fact in Asian culture, thus enters into a dialogue with the pronounced material nature of the work; the use of daily and non-artistic materials in the work of art is a characteristic feature in the visual arts that has developed mainly in the western cultural world from the second half of the 20th century.