“Placid” at The Border Project Space

Participating artists: Sandra Lee, Cecile Chang, and Snow Yunxue Fu

Curated by Jamie Martinez

Sept 25 – Oct 17,2020

The Border Project Space is pleased to present Placid, a group show with works by Sandra Lee, Cecile Chang, and Snow Yunxue Fu. The exhibition, curated by Jamie Martinez, will be on display from September 25 to October 18, 2020. 

Placid considers the notion of tranquil contemplation and investigates the relationships between the environment, modernization, and human existence. Influenced by the serene aesthetic of East Asian traditional landscapes, the artists capture and portray the harmony of nature and humanity as one.

Sandra Lee’s Pond, an installation created with scattered machine-cut sheets of acrylic, is reminiscent of water, evoking calmness and reflection. A distinctive dichotomy is at play: the industrial qualities of the piece, juxtaposed by the natural characteristic of what is being portrayed, ponders the relationship between rapid urban development and green spaces. Pond invites you to look at the mirroring surface of the acrylic sheets and, in turn, yourself. The installation’s industrial components—the materials and the yellow and black structures, alluding to hazard or caution tape found in construction sites—consider the complex contrast of how one is to reflect while modernization is accelerating and uprooting all of society and the environment.

Cecile Chang’s whimsical paintings, portraying episodes of imagery obtained from vintage children’s books, consider cross-cultural narratives that have only increased due to growing globalization. The clever use of varying materials, sourced from all around the world (pigments from Morocco and India, volcanic ash from Ecuador and Asian paper), bolsters the notion of cultural interaction. Additionally, the twenty-five to thirty coats of encaustic alludes to the layering of identities and places, a concomitant result of cultural exchanges. Chang’s works have a nostalgic quality providing the viewer an intimate experience of looking back at their past while also contemplating the present.

“While the humans are staying indoors, the corals are slowly making a come back.”

Trench, Snow Yunxue Fu’s hypnotizing virtual reality installation, projects digital abstractions of the ominous yet majestical oceanic territory. The subliminal experience of traveling through the expansive and foreign space illustrates nature’s beauty but also reveals the extensive damage of human activity with glitches that are triggered by data collected from environmental research. Diving deeper and deeper into the ocean, Fu presents a cerebral journey that immerses the onlooker into the techno sublime and activates rumination about the potential demise of marine life.

*Social distance orders are mandated: one person or a pair are allowed in the space at once. Masks are required.*