one pic tuesday. David Diao

Best Western, 2016
acrylic and vinyl on canvas, 48 x 32 inches

image courtesy of Postmasters, New York

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I usually only post images from exhibitions that have not run their course, so you have the possibility to visit them in person before it closes. Nevertheless today’s pic is featuring a work by DAVID DIAO that were on view through a few days at Postmasters in New York. The text below was part of the press release provided by the gallery.

Events surrounding the loss of my home in China due to the Communist takeover has festered in my mind my entire life. Beginning in 2007, I finally painted some 30 works that zeroed in on this obsession. The resulting show was entitled, “I lived there until I was 6…” and consisted of paintings of maps, site and floor plans, deeds and other material evidence that the house actually existed. All photographs were lost. It was a harrowing escape from Chengdu to HongKong in late October 1949.

The present show continues the story but focuses on the 5 odd years before emigrating from HongKong to the US in 1955. One memory is of my neighbor Li Lihua, the famous movie star, and her glamorous life downstairs in contrast to our refugee drabness. Maps to establish locale and emblems of institutions in my life became paintings. The internet is a wondrous source for images that supplant the lack of a private archive. But in the end what is a child’s world but home, school, church. In working on these paintings I realize that during the entire period there I was mostly waiting to grow up. Besides America was beckoning. – DAVID DIAO, JANUARY 10, 2017

Hongkong Boyhood was on view at Postmasters in New York from February 4 to March 11, 2017.

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