LA-based painter Tidawhitney Lek’s first solo show “House Hold” at Sow & Tailor comprises 10 paintings and two sculptures, examining the personal dichotomies experienced by living in contemporary LA while concurrently being “held” by familial trauma—particularly, for Lek, trauma emerging from her Khmer heritage.

Lek uses a surreal pictorial language in her paintings to intensify these dichotomies; the mystifying painted space fluctuates between interior/exterior and real/liminal to create a dreamlike (or nightmarish) atmosphere. For example: ceiling fans and light switches are suspended outside in midair; doors, stoves and computer desks are surrounded by backyard foliage such as palms, roses and bamboo. The working-class neighborhoods of Los Angeles as the primary location are evident and alluded to with black silhouetted palm trees set against candy-colored sunsets with decorative iron wrought gates and fences.

 

Tidawitney Lek. Bless Us, 2021. Acrylic and Oil on canvas. 36” x 24”;C ourtesy of the artist and Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles. Photography by Josh Schaedel.

 

In the vein of Louise Bourgeois, Leonora Carrington and the literary genre of Magical Realism, Lek takes symbols from everyday life to spin her fever-dream narratives. Plastic water bottles, grocery bags and industrial buckets are painted alongside traditional Khmer garments, woven mats and ceremonial tea sets. These unexpected combinations suggest the importance of daily familial rituals which elevate the profane to the realm of the sacred. This can especially be seen in the paintings Bless Us and Alter  (both from 2022).

 

Tidawhitney Lek. Hide and Seek, 2022. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 72” x 48”; courtesy of the artist and Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles. Photography by Josh Schaedel

A disembodied figure haunts all the work in the show. Like a specter, the figure is represented only by disembodied arms with elongated glittery pink fingernails, suggesting a female presence. For example, in the center of the painting Hide and Seek (2022), an interior wall divides a bedroom closet and residential LA backyard. The spectral hands emerge from the closet, while the reflected scene in the mirrored closet doors show a wide-open blue sky. Thus closets, beds, doors and computer screens act as portals in which this figure emerges. Whether “she” is friend or foe remains undetermined, but the anxiety of her influence is deeply felt suggesting the latter. This specter seems to represent the matriarchal influence, or “hold,” on Lek’s life. The hands tear into the fabric of the present, acting as a metaphor for the linage of traumas that are profoundly felt, if not universally acknowledged.

 

Tidawhitney Lek: House Hold
Sow & Tailor
February 13 — March 20, 2022