About the Exhibition

hole/whole – exhibition essay by Carrie Phillips-Kieser

The Pearls that long have slept, These were tears by Naiads wept.
Sir Walter Scott in The Bridal of Triermain, 1813

 Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the wound that brings thee woe.
Persian Poet, Hafiz, 1320

Through the loaded iconography of the pearl, Calgary based artist Kim Huynh’s series of lithographic prints, hole/whole, speaks of the interconnectivity of our personal desires of accumulation and its affects on the destruction of our environment, within a collective culture of capitalism and globalization.

The pearl has a long history of being associated as an object of desire, a symbol of luxury and opulence. This gem of the sea, according to Pliny in the 1st century, ranked first in value among all precious things and in fact Servilia, the mother of Brutus wore ” the spoils of nations in an ear changed to the treasure of a shell”. In the Chinese tradition the image of the pearl symbolizes riches and pure intentions. Huynh effectively illustrates the true meaning of the word “luxury”; the lasciviousness, the sinful, self-indulgence, through its image. The sheer number of pearls, draping, piling, gathered, is evocative of our own indulgence and of our desire to collect commodities at the expense of the beauty in rarity. At the same time, the pearl/oyster, a natural product of our oceans, is a representation of the sea. Depicted in such numbers, the pearl, here, also stands as an example of the reaping, the depletion and ultimate destruction of its delicate balance.

As we follow through Huynh’s images, the personal begins to erode from view with the slow eradication of the figure.

The established perceptions become less than whole. The pearl slowly becomes replaced with mechanically punched circular holes, like ourselves as our personal actions dissolve and become blurred into the collective. The seduction of the pearl is still evident through the cut away and continues to allude to the seduction of capitalism. As cultures, globally, are falling victim to its seduction and “comfortable” lifestyle, past ways of life are being dissolved. Punched holes – a visual connection to a mechanized and industrial world, removes our personal responsibility and projects that responsibility onto the culture of capitalism itself. The removal of ourselves (the figure), perhaps, pushes us further into unachievable change or responsibility. With the removal of imagery completely and the replacement of symbols of pieces from the ancient warfare game, Xiangqi or Chinese Chess, the work becomes didactic. These last pieces leave us to question our current state of affairs and presents us with the questions-ls it now time to take our turn in the role that has just been presented to us?

If the chaste and subdued beauty of the pearl can also stand as a symbol of a tear, hole/whole cries out a message. Kim Huynh’s piece is a powerful and instructive piece that can indeed provide us with “moments of individual and collective reflection” if only we listen.