French artist Sandrine Llouquet will hold her fifth solo exhibition titled “Chapter 4: Days and Nights of Revolving Joy” at Galerie Quynh in District 1 of HCMC from February 21 to April 6.

“Chapter 4: Days and Nights of Revolving Joy” is Sandrine Llouquet’s fifth solo exhibition in Vietnam - PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ORGANIZER

Borrowing a line from “The Four Zoas”, an unfinished book of mythic poems by William Blake, the exhibition’s title reflects the artist’s continuous and elaborate journey of learning and discovering new things.

The exhibition introduces Sandrine Llouquet’s latest works incorporating ceramics, installation, and video that delve into ideas of identity and division, recurrent themes in her practice.

The artworks are inspired by Llouquet’s recent trips to Spain’s Lisbon and Vietnam’s Hue, where she learned more about pottery mosaic, a traditional technique using broken pottery that flourished in the 17th century.

For her new mosaics, Llouquet shatters porcelain pieces, some found and others hand-painted, into pieces before reconfiguring them into geometric forms. She collects images from different sources and recomposes them into new patterns and narratives. What is divided and fragmented can now be re-seen as a whole.

“Chapter 4: Days and Nights of Revolving Joy” unfolds as a journey from Galerie Quynh’s ground floor and mezzanine with a mosaic of broken ceramics to the second floor with mysterious charcoal drawings on canvas. The second floor’s back room features “Days and Nights of Revolving Joy”, Llouquet’s new video of an esoteric ceremony. Viewers must enter a stark room with only bamboo mats on the floor to view the video, which is accessible only after scanning a QR code on their smartphones.

Born in 1975 in Montpellier, France, Sandrine Llouquet graduated from École Pilote Internationale d’Art et de Recherche – Villa Arson in 1999. A major contributor to the development of contemporary art in Vietnam, she was a founding member of Wonderful District (2005-2011), a project that promoted contemporary art through exhibitions, concerts and theater pieces, as well as a member of Mogas Station (2006-2007), a Vietnam-based artist collective.

Llouquet’s works have been exhibited in numerous venues including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in California and Tate Modern Museum in London. She is now living and working in HCMC.

There will be a talk with Sandrine Llouquet at Galerie Quynh from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on March 23 as a side event of the exhibition. The talk will be in English with Vietnamese translation.

SGT