Flatland
2009-2015Multi Exhibition Project
In 2001, the towers fell, and not a month later, Tomas learned that he was to be a father. From this turbulent time came the Flatland series. Through Flatland Tomas created a landscape that allows for the amalgamation of opposing and conflicting forces: destruction and recovery, chaos and clarity, brutality and civility. These polarities are derived from the constant battle played over in his head between memory and reality, specifically the memory of a distinct landscape that has been displaced. The present psychological reality combines memory, desire, and uncertainty together with the illusion of space and the physicality of the surface. This perceptual power play, the excessively waged war between light and dark, is embodied not only in the use of chiaroscuro but in the exposure of the many contradictions.
Tomas Vu: New Work/ New York, The University Art Gallery at Sonoma State University, 2010
The Flatland series comprises 102 prints, each titled with a time. The 102 pieces represent the 102 minutes between the striking of the first twin tower and the collapse of the second. In doing so, the prints are transformed from individual objects to something more akin to film stills – they are a slice of a moving whole, constantly in motion. When installed for shows, they occupy a grid, often fading from dark to light, becoming snippets of a moving landscape, and taken together, give a sense of movement through time.