Dio Lau’s Confession in Water
Graphic designer and artist Dio Lau takes the rather gruesome starting point of distorted and disturbed heads and body parts for his work, creating something beautiful from something inherently unpleasant.
A new exhibition opening at east London’s Book Club next week, Confessions in Water, will present a new screen printed mural, digital collages, prints and illustrations, a short film and a slideshow projection in Lau’s debut solo show.
The works frequently take the aforementioned body parts imagery and crop and merge them into the final collage or print works, aiming to give an overall feel of ‘contradicting states of calmness and unrest’, according to the gallery.
‘These depict the alienation of the soul,’ The Book Club says. ‘Lau’s art is always an attempt to pursue the notion of art, as the science of freedom. Through it, he explores how to induce an alternative state of awareness.’
Allusions to Lacan’s mirror (a concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan around the child’s development) and Plato’s cave (an allegory in Plato’s’ The Republic about perception, knowledge and truth) also feature, cheerfully representing the triviality of man’s existence.
The exhibition launch will also host the debut screening of Lau’s video project [Tai²] (Body), co-directed with Ka Wah Liu and Ken Ngan. The short film comments on body modification through a narcissistic man tangled in a clay-like substance; while a separate slideshow piece will show a man dressing himself in his own shadow.
Confession in Water runs from 24 May – 7 July at The Book Club, 100-106 Leonard Street, London EC2A
Emily,
I’m wondering why you say “inherently
unpleasant” at the beginning of your comments.