Cyanotype // Spray on fabric
80×181,5 cm (2021)

Obsession is something very present in my work. I have the habit of working on a subject until being tired or bored. I work with transparency, blur and mist: this is my graphic approach that helps me express what I want to. Usually I work with photographic or video documentation, mostly daily pictures taken with my phone. I choose one of them as a base and then I start to produce with one of them as a base. As a cards reader would use cards in divination, I use pictures as a way to trigger and awake something in my imagination, to create a “flash” in my mind that it can prompt a thought or feeling in a truly visceral way.

My current obsession is Chrysalis, in which I am currently focusing my research process. Chrysalis has been traditionally used to represent what is perceptible like through a veil. The cocoon becomes the new veil, the intermediary between visible and invisible, the inside and the outside. Body turns in landscape, a hybrid form that gives hesitation in figuration or abstraction. It is a question about what is in progress and will emerge, the old skin gives way to new one. Before or after the moult this full or empty carcass which persists allows me to explore a new lexical.

You’ll be able to see more of Lucas Ngo’s work during our upcoming Open Studios in March!