MoCA Westport latest exhibit explores color, texture

WESTPORT — The Museum of Contemporary Art in Westport is welcoming the summer with an explosion of color.

The latest exhibitions, which opened this week, explore the works of contemporary artists Richard Tsao and Sao. 

Tsao’s exhibition, “The Constant Gardener” is on view through Aug. 20, while Sao’s exhibition, “Inner Landscapes” can be seen until Aug. 27.

“Richard Tsao and Sao create a spiritual, joyous experience with each artwork, and present the depths of meanings, feelings and relationships we have with color in our lives and in the world at every moment,” Liz Leggett, MoCA Westport’s director of exhibitions, said in a news release. 

Both artists work with color, offering a different take on how they share emotions with the viewer, allowing them to explore the metaphors presented, according to a release from the museum.

Tsao, who was raised in Bangok, Thailand and lives in New York City, uses an accumalative approach. While Sao, who was born in Portugal and lives in Southport, uses layered washes.

“Inner Landscapes” features Sao’s large-scale paintings on canvas. She uses horizontal lines and gestures that suggest a landscape, while the layers of color create a bright wash, crafting an overall meditative space.

“Through this technique, Sao evokes a sense of depth and serenity within each work,” the museum said. “Sao’s keen sensitivity to color relationships and the distilled paint application engage the viewer’s senses and bring about an overall contemplative atmosphere to the paintings.”

Sao has been an artist and designer for more than 30 years and now paints full-time in Southport. She studied art and design in Denmark before moving to the U.S. to pursue her career. Her paintings and textiles have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery, The Textile Museum, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., as well as the American Center for the Arts, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the American Embassy in Paris, the Amphitheater in Arles, France, Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art and the American Craft Museum and Museum of the City of New York.

She’s also received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and was awarded The Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Award and Women in Design International Award. Sao created costumes for the Gulbenkian Ballet in Lisbon and The London Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Since the mid-1990s, Tsao has shown extensively in the United States and Asia, including the Art Projects International in New York and his work is represented in major collections including the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Collection and Montefiore Fine Art Collection, New York.

“In Richard Tsao’s well-known flood room paintings on canvas and wood, his unrestrained use of color seems to appropriately present itself in just the right balance,” MoCA Westport said in a release. “He manipulates pure pigment with an alchemist’s instincts in an approach that leaves his work vibrantly colored.”

Tsao layers the pigment onto and beyond the canvas or wood supports to create encrustations that not only cover the surface, but extend beyond the supports’ edges. The museum said this means the works are more accumulated than painted and can take years to craft. 

“Tsao’s Rectangle series of the 1990s does not seem fixed in the physical world,” the release said. “These superb monotypes take full advantage of the possibilities of transferring an oil painting onto paper. In Tsao’s paintings on canvas, the physicality of brilliantly colored paint also becomes architecture; in contrast, these Rectangle works are the distillation of the spirit of color.”

The Rectangle series is a strong example of his signature use of vibrant colors and layers that bring about the lush nature of his homeland of Thailand, according to the museum. 

“Those familiar with Tsao’s color saturated paintings will recognize his unrestrained use of color in Rectangle works and feel enlivened by the luminosity of the accumulated colors,” MoCA Westport said.

MoCA’s summer gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. Docent-led gallery tours are available at 1 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays.