Timothy Lai's paintings are constructed like a dream. I often find myself, in the midst of looking at them, sort of transfixed with the idea that faces sort of drift in and out of each work, that animals seem to have a deep clarity and the humans merging in and out of focus. It seems apt that the title of Lai's new show is Towards a Blue Room, a nod to Chet Baker, who, too, was able to create notes that seemed to drift and vanish like cigarette smoke in the night. You can hear these paintings but you can't quite recognize where they come from.
And there is something in the idea of covering faces, backs to the viewer, then bared looking back at us. That the figures are embracing, next to each other, then alone and trying to hide themselves. The domestic settings in each paintings create a narrative of how it is to live with someone, how to interact, how to hide in your own space while simultaneously sharing. And I think this is where the Jazz reference comes in, like the harmony of a trumpet, bass, piano and drum, each with their own space to roam but connected to a sound that is whole. The characters here are themselves and individuals but they make something greater in their relation to each other. —Evan Pricco
