In his delightful interview with Artist Praxis, New York-based artist Frank Chang offers wonderful insights into his installation work "Things We Knew." Referring to Frank's established collage practice, this newer work shows the leftover, transpierced board rather than its extracted parts. We see a composition of missing objects leaning against the wall, casting soft shadows off the plywood's clear-cut edges. What we don't see makes us wonder. What do the empty shapes represent? Will we ever be able to guess what missing parts, losses, and forgotten memories they refer to? The absence and presence of symbols in Frank's artwork, the negative and positive spaces within the piece, and its both soft and hard qualities point to the ambiguous state humanity finds itself in. We hold both knowledge and uncertainty amid a climate and humanitarian crisis in a delicate and precarious balancing act.
Things We Knew, 2021
Acrylic paint on plywood
44 x 59 inches / 111,7 x 149,8 cm
