Collection
Kim Hoa TRAM
(Australia, Viet Nam 1959– )
- Title
- Returning to original nature
- Place of origin
-
Australia
- Year
- 2004
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Dimensions
-
134.5 x 67.0cm
- Credit
- Gift of Jason Yeap 2009. Donated through the Australian Government Cultural Gifts Program.
- Accession number
- 247.2009
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
The painting is inscribed with a title: 'yeluo guigen' which literary means that, when a leaf falls, it returns to its root, suggesting the implication of a thing returning to its original nature. It is followed by the date and the artist’s signature: ‘painted in the year of 'jashen' (2004) by Yihe’. There are three seals: ‘Yuanqi (‘the rise or beginning of causations of events)’, ‘Shenshi (the painter’s family name)’ and ‘Foxin (‘the heart-mind of a Buddhist)’.
‘A contemplative scene is created by what appears to be two leaves falling towards the circle at the bottom of the painting. The artist has painted the leaves very quickly with a configuration of spontaneous and subtle abstract brushwork. The circle is painted or drawn in one beautifully executed anti-clockwise brushstroke. This painting is evocative of a quiet, calm scene of the moon in reflection. The leaves are reminiscent of bats flying above the moon.’ (Mae Anna Pang, 'Moon in the Reflection: The Art of Kim Hoa Tram', Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2008, fig. 15, and p. 42).
Asian Art Department, AGNSW, June 2009.
