True Blue

2015
Oil and acrylic on canvas
69 x 99 cm

True Blue sees Le Quy Tong experiment with a hybrid of painting, decorated pattern and found imagery. Each of the works takes its starting point from photographic documentations of significant political meetings that influenced the course of history. The images – sourced from historical archives and mass media – have been taken out of their original contexts and appropriated, dissected and reassembled into something new and uncanny, making it difficult to decipher between the make-believe, the manipulated and the genuine. Together, they highlight the generic features of all meetings – big halls filled with hefty chairs, grand tables and elaborate chandeliers; men deep in discussion or signing papers. An air of ceremony lingers even when all content and context are stripped away. (Bill Nguyen)