"The number of truly exciting painters in Guyana today can be counted on one hand." Thierry Tian-Sio-Po is one of them. An amazing technique, sublime colours and a passion that has never wavered. Paintings in which, as close to real time and his volatile thoughts as possible, he maps out his plans, paints portraits of his encounters, captures the light and resurrects the places that have captivated him, with no erasing or crossing-out.
Like the theatre actors who dominate the stage without having to utter a word, he immediately hooks you in and keeps you there, such is his grip. And for good reason. Thierry Tian-Sio-Po paints in a style that borrows from his roots, his training and his bedtime reading. His brush strokes, as delicate as a calligrapher’s quill, create images, scents, sensations and idea that mingle and even merge. With him, there is not a trace of anger, much less morality. Nor is there any resentment, the vanity of the deprived. What is evident is an astonishing ability to isolate the essential, a constant appetite for questioning and a striking aptitude for awareness.

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The theme of the exhibition, Inextricable, is bound to delight Tian-Sio-Po. He is a member of a school that cares little for lyrical abstraction. The aim is not to paint the abstract, but to sketch out stories, anecdotes and slices of life. As he is fond of repeating, the artist’s role is to “produce things that bring about certain tensions”. Artists come from the margins, and that is where they choose to remain, observing, analysing, criticising and even shifting what lies in the centre. This is the challenge: forcing the centre to transform the way it sees itself. With Thierry Tian-Sio-Po, this means allowing us to really feel the contradiction between what we are and what we want to be. To express this complexity, the Guianian painter has chosen the baroque method, a dynamic and lyrical art form that stands out for its quest for effects and its appeal to the senses and emotions. Through this way of seeing and revealing Guianese society, Tian-Sio-Po seeks to strip away appearances and highlight conventional wisdom. This result is Inextricable. It weighs heavy and delights the mind. At times, it feels like an intimate conversation between the artist and the visitor, as he talks to us, calls us as witnesses, presents us with his kaleidoscopic history. It may seem disconcerting, but who said that the best painting always had to be comfortable? Especially as, to achieve his aims, the Guianian mixes acrylic, charcoal, metal, wood, varnish and frames. Even so, he is unique in his rejection of a complete system, his deconstruction of ambient ideology, his choice of questioning over certainty, and finally in his highlighting of deadlocks in Guianese society. With what is tempting to describe as nonchalance, and in any case only applying pressure where it might hurt, the paintings are an opinion-led distillation of what those in the know might see as a discord that is not fully dissolved in the laughter provoked by observing behaviour, from a distance, that the painter initially seems to portray as unique, bizarre or even extravagant and, without putting us on our guard, restores all their perverse banality. Immersed in the depths of Guyana, the dreamlike, invigorating paintings of Thierry Tian-Sio-Po are a pictorial lesson in critical consciousness.

René Ladouceur