JOYCE HO, FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION

Into the depth of human thought…

Joyce presents until the 8th August at l’Oranger Gallery, based in Chang An East Road, a very surprising and questioning exhibition. Inspired by Balthus, her favorite painter, Dali, Magritte and Picasso, most of surrealist painters, she tries to show in her paintings the ‘schizophrenia’ that lies inside of us, this duality between our animal and human side, the contradictions existing between our mind and heart, soul and body, reason and desires, the antagonism inherent to our ‘double thinking’ to use Pascal words, our social behavior and intimate being, our relationship to our self and to the other… as if we were captive of this inner conflict and can’t transcend it. For example, the painting in which we can see a young girl talking with herself is characteristic of the main topic of her work.

The one with the penguin whose sharp beak make us feel the pain and harm inside the woman lying down can seem troubling to a neophyte, like the one with the girl whom head is so big that we can’t help thinking about Lewis Carroll’s Alice or Tim Burton’s movies. But they show the deep atmosphere of Joyce’s universe: using bright color between yellow, orange and brown, colors of the earth and sun, very soft and appeasing ones, she shows with acuteness the reality of human being. However, she expresses the ‘violence in a quiet and very symbolic way’. A very emotional and sensitive one. I dare say!

As she explains us : ‘the foundation of my work is my family, I paint a lot my father, my sister, myself… and the animals are like mask people wear to hide themselves from the world. They are also projections of their inner side.’ The paintings can give a very puzzling feeling to the spectator who can feel not so easy when he looks at them because of the violence and the hard reality of human relationships which are portrayed. But one can’t stay in front of her paintings without any feelings.

I think the purpose is not a chocking one: Joyce just tries to show out, with humbleness and modesty, the complexity of human being and behaving and she succeeds really in doing so. The exhibition was successful on the opening day and we recommend it to you. Because Joyce, who is also stage designer for theatre shows, had many qualities to become a good painter with her imaginative and spirited paintings.

DVDM

From the 3rd July until the 29th august, L’Oranger Gallery presents YAYOI KUSAMA solo exhibition www.loranger.com