PRESENTATION: Richard Tsao-Rectangle

Richard Tsao IS known for using a process oriented, labor intensive approach and particular aesthetic of beauty in creating his paintings and works on paper. His “flood room” paintings on canvas and wood, his unrestrained use of color seems to appropriately present itself in just the right balance. He manipulates pure pigment with an alchemist’s instincts in an approach that leaves his work vibrantly colored.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo Art Projects International Archive

The exhibition “Rectangle” is the first dedicated to Richard Tsao’s intimate and exquisite works on paper from the 1990s. The exhibition brings together 21 works from his “Rectangle” series, lushly layered abstract works on paper that are closely linked to his singular “flood room” painting series and provides an opportunity to understand his artistic development. Created in the winter of 1996, a year after his breakout first solo museum exhibition in New York at the Queens Museum in 1995, these works on paper are the earliest works from Richard Tsao’s extensive explorations with works on paper engaging his widely varied and inventive techniques resulting from his highly individual aesthetic. These small works on paper present a more playful and freely experimental Tsao and offer a glimpse into a critical period in the artist’s career that coincided with his prolific output and the development of his “flood room” paintings. Two rarely seen flood room paintings that were part of his recent solo museum exhibition “Richard Tsao: Constant Gardener” at MoCA Westport in 2023 will also accompany the show. A long-time resident of New York, Thai-born Richard Tsao is celebrated for his well-known “flood room” paintings created by pooling and flowing pigments in his specially-designed unorthodox studio. Gregory Galligan best describes the spirit of this unique flood room studio: “The Flood Room’s physically and emotionally humid atmosphere derives from the congested soi, the backstreets of Bangkok that often flood during the sweltering monsoon season.” These vibrantly colored, multi-layered paintings evoke the lush nature of his native Thailand and are inspired by his memories of growing up in Bangkok. The 1990s were an active period for Tsao as an artist in New York with his works appearing in numerous exhibitions in New York, including key exhibition spaces. His “Round” series monotypes of the 1990s are circles, discs of color, which do not seem fixed in the physical world. These superb monotypes take full advantage of the possibilities of transferring an oil painting onto paper. In Tsao’s signature paintings (many-layered works created in Tsao’s specially designed paint flood-room), the physicality of brilliantly colored paint also becomes architecture; in contrast, these “Round” works are the distillation of the spirit of color. Richard Tsao is originally from Thailand, and he has developed a unique painting technique. he explained that he mixes painting with marble dust on a canvas, and soaks that in a flooded room. “I call it soaking and saturation of the work, and flooding.  Maybe it has something with growing up in Thailand, where we had monsoons and our backyard was always flooded for like two months. It’s time consuming, and very labor intensive, and it’s not practical,” he said. “It’s, you know, what Wall Street would say not cost effective”. Also, Richard Tsao cultivated an appreciation for tailoring and fine silks from his mother’s custom made cheongsam dresses. Inspired by the beauty of Thai silk, his classic designs incorporate detail from traditional Southeast Asian and Chinese garments. The silk is hand spun, to catch and brilliantly reflect light. Hand-woven on old-fashioned looms, the result is lustrous fabric with a luxurious texture.

Photo left: Richard Tsao, Rectangle 90, 1996, oil on Stonehenge paper, 10 3/4 x 8 5/8 inches (27.3 x 21.9 cm), © Richard Tsao, Courtesy the artist and Art Projects International Photo right: Richard Tsao, Rectangle 28, 1996, oil on Stonehenge paper, 10 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches (27.3 x 21.3 cm), © Richard Tsao, Courtesy the artist and Art Projects

Info: Art Projects International, 434 Greenwich Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 13/2-29/3/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-18:00, https://artprojects.com/