Memory and Body Mythology

Vin Gallery proudly presents Mahdi Abdullah's solo show, "Memory and Body Mythology". As we are committed to representing contemporary artists from Southeast Asia whose artworks contain powerful messages, we are glad to bring Mahdi Abdullah's works to the Vietnamese audience. His works have consistently offered a dialectic with the viewers.

"Memory and Body Mythology" weaves together his personal experiences with the broader social, political, and environmental turbulences he has faced. From enduring armed conflicts and the devastating 2004 Aceh tsunami to witnessing contemporary societal unrest, Mahdi transforms these intense memories into artworks. In this creative process, he was inspired by Barthes' concept of myth as a way of saying, manifested through various paintings he presented. Through his solo show, he will disclose the combination of realistic techniques and symbolic forms to capture profound memories and experiences.




Memory and Body Mythology in Mahdi Abdullah's Works

Mahdi Abdullah's body has endured various frictions from social events, society, politics, environment, and living myths. These experiences are digested and stored in his brain, transforming into memories that eventually demand to be released and expressed through his artworks.

Mahdi has faced a long-lasting armed conflict in his homeland of Aceh, surviving violent events and social conflicts. He also experienced the devastating tsunami in Aceh in 2004, which took the lives of his parents and two younger siblings.

These events and the surrounding history, along with the development of digital technology, have allowed myths to emerge and settle into memories. According to Barthes, myth is not a concept, idea, or object but a way of saying—a result of speech, not language.

When events recur, such as the ongoing wars between Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia, earthquakes, and societal "pain" from power politics, Mahdi's senses and body are jolted. Memories of past experiences resurface, disturbing him and compelling him to release the trauma, despite its persistent nature.

Mahdi channels this release into art: installations, paintings, sculptures, even sketches or notes in the form of drawings. He patiently endures and expresses these as a "medicine" for the past pain inflicted on his body.

Raincoat

Recently, Mahdi has frequently depicted raincoats in his paintings as a Body's wrapper (with capital B). This began when he witnessed a demonstration in Jakarta, around the Monas area (close to the National Gallery of Indonesia) where participants wore white costumes representing a certain faith group. During this demonstration, heavy rain led to a contrasting scene: the streets were filled with people in colorful raincoats. Mahdi found this latter scene more intriguing than the demonstration itself.

Mahdi chose raincoats as a form of body language in his paintings, reflecting Indonesia's equatorial climate with its rainy and hot seasons. He noted that raincoats are used not only in equatorial regions but also worldwide, making them a contemporary symbol.

Mahdi's works span several periods, including armed conflict, social conflict (duality), and identity conflict. The core connecting these periods is the memory of his experiences as a human being living within a society and environment.

His creative process relies on the aesthetic theory of objective accuracy, using realistic representational techniques based on symbolic forms from his environment, encapsulating memorabilia behind the signs.