Saturday, November 30, 2019

The Kmhmu Highlands

Kmhmu
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019
The image here was sourced from the cover of the cd Bamboo on the Mountains (Smithsonian, 1999.) The original photo was taken by Frank Proschan in the Song Khwae district of northern Nan in Thailand in 1996. The teum singing by Ya' Ak ang Ya' Seu Keodaeng the painting represents comes from the same district as the source photo but the woman most likely isn't either of them. (Two other musicians from the same photograph—there's five of individuals—I've painted before to represent the same song. I'm again not quite sure concerning the gender of any of them.) The recording was made by Proschan in 1992. The symmetry of the painting is neither around a vertical axis nor a horizontal axis but is both, a diagonal axis perhaps. As in a playing card you can turn the painting around to get the same image. I played around with this concept first in a stencil print of Alvin Lucier and I will experiment further on this concept. Possibilities galore but not enough to create a full deck.

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