“Koha, Manike the Maniac, and Lomba.”All photographs © Kumkum Fernando, shared with permission
Without delay totemic and automaton-like, the deities in-built Studio REBORN in Saigon are sure by mystique. The characters are scions of the Vietnamese metropolis, rising from doorways, home windows, tabletops, and deserted structure that Kumkum Fernando collects, cleans, and repurposes as figurative sculptures. Whereas the discovered supplies could have misplaced their unique paint or patterns, the artist faithfully honors this historical past, typically recreating motifs and shade palettes mirrored on the ultimate types.
Born in Sri Lanka to an vintage collector, Fernando incorporates this background into his items, each by the act of scouring development websites, resale retailers, and streetside trash bins for wooden and different objects utilized in his observe and thru adornment. Lots of his sculptures embrace parts of folkloric tales and temple work that infuse the items with a religious, legendary high quality and reference Sri Lankan tradition.
Fernando’s newest physique of labor abandons the glossy, boldly vibrant types of current years to as an alternative concentrate on a gritty, post-apocalyptic narrative. “I began out by making notebooks and toy automobiles utilizing outdated Vietnamese constructing elements earlier than transitioning to shiny figurative items,” he tells Colossal of his evolution. “I started to overlook the textures and colours I used to work with. That’s after I determined to return and incorporate elements I cherished from the start into this sequence.”
On view now at Jonathan Levine Initiatives, the characters of Publish Colonial Rainbow Punks “are intergalactic swashbucklers—half gangsters, half legendary beings.” Like his earlier works, they invoke East Asian historical past and mythology by the lens of structural particles like French shutters and window frames, though their geometric our bodies are embellished with mottled, worn paint and what seems like rusted metals. Hailing from a distant future whereas constructed with supplies of the previous, these figures recontextualize time and area and are mentioned to have reached Earth searching for Princess Izzah 281, their most tough mission but.
For extra of Fernando’s unbelievable sculptures, go to his website and Instagram.
“Koha”
“Weeping Orchid”
Element of “Weeping Orchid”
“Comfortable Boss”
“Ilo Galaxy”
“Jackfruit Jenny”
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