The Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said that “An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.”
The paintings of Tran Tuan on display here tonight represent his choice to let himself dream of the world. This exhibition is his invitation to us to join him in that dream.
And every great work of art reaches across time. These works speak to us about what was, what is, and they even insinuate, whispering, what might be.
By taking only the faces of iconic figures and enlarging them to an overwhelming scale, Tuan pulls us into the dream with him, through these visages. In this way, he helps us decode our own answers to the questions this series of paintings is asking. Why are we here? What are we doing? Who are we?
These are powerful triptychs and even more important questions. I hope you will enjoy this exhibition “The World” tonight as much as I do.
And I hope you will dare to go even further into Tuan’s dreamscape imagery by visiting the online series and gaining a full perspective of the entire body of this collection and the answers it seeks to elucidate.
Thank you. Now please enjoy this remarkable exhibition.
