Dungeons & Daydreams | Alya Hatta & Ji Won Cha

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* Please note amended times and dates due to tube strikes

Dungeons and Daydreams  | Alya Hatta & Ji Won Cha

17 March - 1 April 2023

PV Wednesday 22 March 7-9pm

“To create a work of art is to create the world.”

Wassily Kandinsky

This is the world of Dungeons and Daydreams, spectacularly imagined and built by artists Alya Hatta and Ji Won Cha. 

The pair’s first duo exhibition in the UK, Dungeons and Daydreams, features new works from Hatta and Cha, two London-based artists who share a passion for world building. Their combined works explore both the dichotomies that surround us, and a search for a natural harmony. Together, they invite visitors to contemplate the contradictions and tensions that exist within the natural world.

The exhibition title is a playful reference to the legendary fantasy tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. However, the artworks on display go beyond mere fantasy and delve into the art of creating worlds that fundamentally do not exist, yet are recognisable and nostalgic. Through their unique techniques and styles, Hatta and Cha explore the contradicting interfaces in life and seek solace and inspiration in nature. Nature is universal in its contradictions - equally adored and feared. Alya Hatta's paintings are a beautiful amalgamation of memories from different locations, depicting the diversity and complexity of the natural world. While Ji Won Cha's artworks are steeped in emotion, evoking a sense of melancholy and introspection.

Alya Hatta draws on experiences and memories to create worlds that experiment with form, colour, and space. Her works explore intimacies and the human condition, and draw inspiration from people and communities both near and far. Hatta’s works breathe in the space, creating alternate realities and new, safe spaces, celebrating her identity and the communities that she has encountered.

The largest of her works 100 Kilos Uphill, Hour One and Hour Two rest together in the exhibition, forming the basis of the five sculptures. Here, she depicts a struggling hike, examining the ground she steps on and the life that lives there. The work pulses from the wall with vibrancy and colour. Hatta pushes her mediums to their limits, resulting in works that are constantly revisiting memories and interactions. Plants appear throughout, including tropical plants from Malaysia, and garden varieties from London. Her recent trip to Spain inspired an exploration of microecologies, herbs, and weeds in her works. It was a welcome change from London, where she feels withdrawn from nature, since almost all nature is hindered and designed by humans. 

Hatta’s sculptures are composed from a diversity of found materials; old clothes from Malaysia, bike chains and pearls, often found from the local communities in East Street Market, combined with paint. She has a close relationship with the Vendors, and enjoys their curation of materials, encouraging a community feeling to her practice. Though made by the artist’s hands, the folds of the sculptures appear organic, like specimens or ruptures of the earth’s crust. The works are held together through tension on the medium, mirroring the duality of the artist’s personality.

Both artists seek solace and inspiration in nature. Alya Hatta's memories of the natural and varied flora of Malaysia are beautifully portrayed in her paintings, capturing the essence of the country's rich biodiversity. Ji Won Cha, on the other hand, examines the over-curated, ornamental outdoors that is a byproduct of human intervention, seeking to understand the impact of human activity on the natural world.

Cha’s works examine the contradictions and tensions that exist within our natural world, using nature as a metaphor to portray conflicting feelings existing in the same space and time. Painting in an abstract language, her works combine broad inspiration from today’s social media to epic ancient folklore. Nature is used within the context of the work to provide an entry point to the viewer, with each work feels like a contradictory discovery. Cha’s works examine the constant adjusting and altering of the natural world by humankind - the over breeding for consumption, the intervening evolution of brighter, more attractive flowers, and the fabrication of landscaping.

These contradictions are clearly demonstrated through Fearless In My Heart I & II. These voluminous works have a seductive quality, inspired by ice glaciers falling down and meeting with a splash in the water in the artist’s iconic, glossy look. They communicate with each other, erupting and descending, pushing and pulling. These works are planned clearly, equally fluid in execution and carefully mapped.

Cha’s exhibited work includes Entangled. This work pervades our subconscious, reflecting themes of longing for something out of reach, with its precarious, leering and ominous hang. Voyeuristic. Unapproachable. It is an optic that holds a lot of class structures, with feelings of ‘a better life’, feeling far away to so many. Cha’s works contain a pure and persistent sense of prayer and wishing. When painting, the artist repeats titles and themes to herself, longing for the work to reveal. This potent sense of desire is prevalent through each painting - the dream and desire for something different. 

The smaller oil on canvas works reflect poetically on a story from Cha’s childhood. Her parents described how flowers, such as the daffodil depicted, are at their most beautiful just before their death. This is why people pick them. The flowers here are glass - fragile, seducing, dangerous. 

Together, Hatta and Cha’s works create an immersive experience that explores the relationships between emotion, memory and nature, inviting visitors to contemplate the contradictions and tensions that exist within the natural world. There is magic and mystery in their mastery. 

This exhibition is a celebration of the art of world-building. Join us on this journey of introspection and exploration as we delve into the world of Dungeons and Daydreams.