This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
The William Nuttall and Annette Reeves Collection, Melbourne
Lot 81
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn(born 1971)Vikasati, 1996
27 August 2025, 14:00 AEST
SydneySold for AU$7,380 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Australian Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Alex Clark
Head of Sale, Senior Specialist
Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn (born 1971)
Vikasati, 1996
signed lower left: 'Savanhdary Vongpoothorn'
titled and dated lower right: 'Vikasati, 1996'
synthetic polymer paint on paper
54.0 x 54.0cm (21 1/4 x 21 1/4in).
signed lower left: 'Savanhdary Vongpoothorn'
titled and dated lower right: 'Vikasati, 1996'
synthetic polymer paint on paper
54.0 x 54.0cm (21 1/4 x 21 1/4in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
King Street Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso)
Dr Dick Quan, Sydney (label attached verso)
Christie's, Sydney, 24 May 2005, lot 58
Bonhams, The Collection of Bonita Croft and the Late Gene Zemaitis, Sydney, 20 June 2018, lot 30
The William Nuttall and Annette Reeves Collection, Melbourne
EXHIBITED
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, King Street Gallery, Sydney, 1996
Holy Threads: Lao Tradition and Inspiration, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, New South Wales, 19 September – 23 October 1998
LITERATURE
Holy Threads: Lao Tradition and Inspiration, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, New South Wales, p. 16
Born in Laos, the eight year-old Savanhdary Vongpoothorn was smuggled across the Mekong River to a Thai refugee camp. After nine months the family was sponsored to Australia.
Savanhdary's work displays influences of Lao textiles and calligraphy, Australian landscape and Aboriginal art. She was inspired in part by her contact with Wedderburn in Western Sydney, where she lived and worked for eight years, drawing inspiration from her fellow artists and the surrounding Australian bush. Her work is characterised by its attention to colour, tone, sensuousness and texture.
'The process of piercing the paper is obsessive and labour-intensive, often taking Vongpoothorn many weeks to complete a single work. The process may be likened to the practise of meditation. A 1996 work titled Vikasati, for instance, roughly translates as "to illuminate, expand or open wide". This work consists of a large square, painted a deep burgundy, pierced from the back to form an elaborate geometric pattern that weaves its way across the surface of the paper in a labyrinthine maze. Each of the holes appears to symbolise a day or even a moment of experience, woven together (perhaps as an act of remembering?) to create the impression of a unified narrative or journey.'1
1. Benjamin Genocchio, Holy Threads: Lao Tradition and Inspiration, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, New South Wales, p. 16