June 2009
Diem Chau and Wendy Given
at Fifth Floor Gallery
The exhibition Short Stories features the photographic series A. hypogaea albus (peanut Elves) by Wendy Given together with Diem Chau's tiny human caricatures and embroidered ceramics. Both artists' work is inspired by myths and oral traditions passed on by generations. Given and Chau speak to the intimacy of family conversations over coffee and kitchen table crafts and the comfort and care that these relations imply.
Given's grouping of photographs commands the most serious attention because of its isolation on the spare upper floor of the gallery. Her C-print photographs on Plexiglas feature carefully lit peanuts against smooth black back-grounds. As a child, Given's family taught her a game-passed through generations of the artist's family in the Netherlands-that involved searching for images of elves inside peanuts. The carved peanuts in Given's photographs enlarge the "elves" to approximately thirty times their actual size, revealing a tiny world hidden in plain sight. Peanut Elf, fig. 2 (2008) stares at viewers from under a floppy hat with a clever wink, and Given utilizes the bud of the peanut to create the elfs beard. It's an incredible transformation. The dramatically lit carved orifices of the elf's face seem to take on a monumental quality while shadows exaggerate the form. Peanut Elf, fig. 9 (2008) depicts a gamine elf in profile, his delicately pointed earlobe turned toward the camera.
The peanut elves have a wondrous quality, not in that they are carved with particular accuracy, but that through an act of collective imagination, a family can bring such a small wonder to life. Given's work walks a fine line between the sentimentality marketed by commercial photography and the simplicity of handicraft. In Given's presentation, the carved peanuts seem to have an elevated importance, mimicking the role of storytelling in the perception of events and people within families.
A Vietnam native, Chau and her family came to America as refugees in the '80s. Having learned her own family's history through oral traditions, Chau relates these and other narratives via the use of common objects such as saucers, thread and crayons. Like Given's peanut elves, Chau's carved crayons are cleverly made, but Chau's work seems lost in the downstairs space where it is forced to share space with other gallery wares. The carved crayons and pencils, such as Classic Girl (2009), suffer the most because of their small scale and the crowded surroundings of the gallery. In this environment, it's difficult to focus on anyone work in particular. The ceramics are more successful in this context. Their fusion of the two handcrafts-embroidery and porcelain-is unexpected and draws the viewer in for further inspection. For example, Hand (2008) depicts a delicately gloved hand pinching a red organza thread that breaks the edge. The image appears surprisingly at the bottom of a teacup balancing the interior and exterior of the form with elegant restraint. Chau's embroidered ceramics brings to mind the wit and wisdom of Meret Oppenheim's early surrealist works, with their use of textural devices and feminine symbolism. Assimilate (2008) takes the form of an oval dish with a silhouette of a blank girl partially filled with parallel embroidery stripes. The stripes begin at the top of the figure's head and disappear at the top of the torso. Here the body is seen as a vessel for the assimilation of forms as well as the cultural assimilation Chau so elegantly describes.
-Mary Anna Pomonis
Short Stories: Diem Chau and Wendy Given closed in April at Fifth Floor, Los Angeles.
Mary Anna Pomonis is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.