Artist Finds Zen Through Wax Sculpting

via

It might be the season for ice sculptures in some parts of the world, but Saigon-based LaHuy is warming winterized eyes with forms fashioned from heated wax.

Born in Bien Hoa, Vietnam, the artist graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 2004 and started out as a painter. He then made a fated discovery of the wax medium, inspiring a radical shift in practice.

La Huy has stated that working with wax provides him with more fulfillment than does any other material. Whereas wax art often possesses ironic, kitschy, or grotesque aspects, his sculptures are stately as stone and sacred as ghosts.

Image of the artist and one of his sculptures. via

In October 2011, the Cactus Gallery of Contemporary Art in Ho Chi Minh City displayed twenty of his pieces in A Sentimental Zone. The evocative solo show included translucent, life-sized human forms lit from the inside, oil-and-wax illustrated candles, and crinkled texts glazed with wax.

The inspiration for one of La Huy’s pieces was a pregnant woman running across the street. Not wishing to merely imitate reality, the artist created a still figure illuminated from the rounded core by a soft light in order to convey the vulnerability, fragility, and excitement he felt in that moment.

Emotions guide La Huy’s work, and he declares that the scent of melting wax ferries him away from daily realties. His works of wax-glazed newspaper are quite literal representations of his goal to transform the mundane into the emotive and profound.

Motifs favored by the artist include angelic children and austere men, which, along with mothers-to-be, hint at his Catholic roots. His appreciation for Buddhism and holy texts is apparent in the waxed leaves of bibles or Buddhist tracts, respectfully handled to preserve the beauty of the items and leave choice phrases visible.

A video posted by the Cactus Gallery reveals the artist’s intentions and remarkably human process of creating pristine beauty from unwieldy wax. He whistles as he works in his tiny studio with a rough linoleum floor, melting crude chunks of wax in a metal tureen on a single electric heating coil. He then dips a small brush into the liquid wax to paint upon a life size canvas and plaster mannequin until a physique as smooth and pure as alabaster materializes. To create his collage candles, he heats colored wax in spoons, employing even smaller brushes to create iconic images that he fixes fast into place with one last coat of hot, transparent wax.

Striving to share his emotions about the experiences that make life worth living, he is well on his way to capturing hearts and minds everywhere. Having impressed international audiences with A Sentimental Zone, Huy contributed to the Deep S.E.A Contemporary art from South East Asia exhibition at Primo Giovanni Marella in Italy last year, and is currently preparing to display his Buddhist books and monks’ vests for a solo show in Lugano, Switzerland.

Photo of “Old Buddhist Book”, via Primo Marella Gallery.

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For more information on La Huy visit TalkVietnam here.