Red Strap

Streitmatter-Tran looks to the mediated social world of profile images and considers their relation to the long tradition of portraiture painting. Using social media networks, he takes as profile images as initial references, now stripped of their meta information and contextual tagging in order to paint portraits that transform the subjects - and in many cases, returns an image of the final paintings to the original posters.  Painting on an absorbent ground in watercolor and gouache on metal plates and woks, these ubiquitous items found throughout Vietnam often resembling reflecting mirrors.  The artist searches for a connection between the immateriality of screen based lives with the material objects of everyday life. The title, Prophilia, is an invented word bringing together the words profile and -philia, the love of something.

Continuing a series of watercolor and gouache portraits painted on absorbent watercolor ground on various metal trays, dishes and woks that began with the 2018 solo exhibition, Prophilia, at SPRMRT's STPI location in Singapore, and then in the extended 2019 series with Vin Gallery at Volta Basel 2019,  Art PhilippinesSydney Contemporary, and ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair.

* This painting was originally included in the series, The Species Paintings, made for the Reconstruction exhibition at Bangkok University Gallery (BUG) in Thailand in 2018. I amended the work, then titled Human (Homo Sapiens) to the current work.

DETAILS

2018

Sydney Contemporary 2019, Australia
September 12-15, 2019
Watercolor and gouache on metal plate with absorbent ground
30 cm diameter, Series 1

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