Serene shadows
There are some surprisingly dark shadows in the life of Gavin Tu - yet the artist's best known for his serene Buddhist sculptures and paintings on silk. He's also the founder of interior design firm Collaborate, which created the Kee Club, The Glamour Room in Shanghai and the Hong Kong Fringe Club's Fotogalerie. The usually upbeat Tu is a well-liked figure in the local art scene.
Tu has another short exhibition, 'About Time', coming up next weekend. But as he kneels by a low coffee table in his modest basement flat in the Mid-Levels, he starts talking about a history most people don't know.
'I was one of the boat people, in a fishing boat of 11 metres with 80 people. It wasn't as terrifying as other people's stories,' he says. 'But by the 10th or 11th day, we didn't know where we were going. We were rescued by a Russian military boat and they directed us to Indonesia. They say [that] if we kept going, we would go to the Indian Ocean, which was the middle of nowhere.'
The story was news to Lydie Courtade, the Frenchwoman who is holding Tu's next show at her home in Stanley. 'You never talk about that,' she says.
After dodging a few questions, Tu says he was born in Saigon, the youngest of five children, after the end of the Vietnam war. The family ran a shop 'that sold pretty much everything'; but when Tu was about 13, his family were branded capitalists and forced to close their business.
Tu's eldest brother was able to escape by boat and made it to Melbourne while his younger brothers and sisters were left behind. 'We tried leaving so many times,' he says. 'You would go to someone's place, and there would be waiting, and nothing would happen, so you'd go home. Or, other times you would go to a boat and nothing would happen, so you'd go home.'
Tu and a sister finally escaped to a refugee camp in Indonesia, where they lived on a cramped platform. 'At the time, you're just waiting, but when you look back now, it's just an island with clear water, white sand,' he says. 'Some people had stayed there for two, three years, so I was lucky.'
After six months, Tu was sponsored by his brother to move to Melbourne, where he lived in a hostel and learned English. Like many young Vietnamese immigrants in Australia, he progressed quickly. In five years, at the age of 20, he earned the right to study architecture at Melbourne University. In 1994, he stopped over in Hong Kong and, by chance, found a job. 'I thought I would be here for one year.'
The tough life story is at odds with Tu's soft personality, and the tranquil quality of his artworks. It does, however, explain his tendency to turn rough subjects - such as the 'hard shell' of an office space where the Kee Club is now located - into something beautiful.
Leaning against what looks like every available vertical space in Tu's home studio are nearly two dozen works that will be shown in 'About Time'. They are monochromatic acrylic paintings on traditional Chinese silk, either of serene Buddha faces, or of twisting human torsos.
'You could compare it to Chinese ink painting because I am using one colour,' he says. There are also delicate torso sculptures made from wire mesh, and more Buddha faces in clay.
Tu says he isn't Buddhist, but prefers to paint the pure aesthetics of Buddha's face.
'The reason I choose Buddha faces, is that I don't want to paint human faces and have people ask, 'Who's this?'' he says. 'And I suppose, with the Buddha face, there is a perfection. It's related
to architecture in terms of proportions.'
In one work, he paints a man's torso in vibrant blue silk with an exquisite dragon tattoo curling across the entire back (named Two Thousand after the Year of the Dragon). It is created from one pot of paint. 'It really is about the light and shade,' he says. 'I use shadows to create form in the paintings and sculptures. I find it intriguing that you can use one colour and play with the light and shade and make it three-dimensional.
'It is like architecture again.
I suppose I see it as a challenge.'
About Time, Sat, 6pm-9pm and Dec 5, 10am-6pm, House C7, Stanley Knoll, 42 Stanley Knoll Rd, Stanley. Inquiries: 9300 3858
