JASON PHU
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
11 November – 16 December 2023
STATION | MELBOURNE
STATION is delighted to present our third solo exhibition with Jason Phu: flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber.
Phu’s practice has long tussled with duality and opposition: humour and seriousness, cultural dislocation and cultural homage, affability and anxiety. Painted in a deliberately naïve style with tongue-in-cheek subject matter, while also employing calligraphy, traditional ink paintings and visual motifs from Chinese culture, Phu’s paintings investigate cultural identity within an Australian context.
Central to this exhibition is a menagerie of painted flowers that drip and droop down the canvases. The flowers are real and imagined: some flowers that belonged to the artist, some were painted from paintings of flowers, and some entirely made up. Flowers have long been central to Phu’s practice, paying homage to his mother’s career as a florist and a childhood spent surrounded by bouquets and floristry equipment.
Those familiar with Phu’s practice will recognise that host of characters that interact with the flowers: dancing ghosts and demons, bugs and animals. With humour and colour the paintings encourage both reflection and conversation.
To request a catalogue click here.
Installation Views
Artworks
Jason Phu
when pigs fly so will people and then we’ll be able to have sky sex and that will be fucking awesome dude 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
oh what joy to find that the grass is indeed greener on the other side is what the pokies addicts said before they tumbled into the well where the villagers emptied their shit buckets 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
there was a town that danced from dusk to dawn and made love every day for ninety days straight without sleep without food or water with only wine and beer and rum and then one day they stopped and no one talked of it again until they stopped remembering and now the town is rubble and dust and stray cats and covered in thick vines that bloom the most beautiful white flower every spring 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
the memory of your scent is just the sweat of a dogs testicles 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
i stared into your eyes and there was a deep dark abyss or abscess im not sure whatever it is you should go get it checked out 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
im tired of painting flowers 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
when i see you i think about sex 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
i picked this for you from the swamp of my desires, i dug my claws into the muck of the river and pulled it all out, roots, worms, mud, centipedes, scorpions, a lake full of my naughty thoughts for everyone to marvel at, for everyone to gape at, for everyone to screen record and turn viral and for me to become tiktok famous and for taylor swift to invite me on stage or maybe for the rock to @ me in one of his posts or for zeus itself to smite my brains out with a well aimed throw of a metaphysical cartoonishly drawn lighting bolt from the heavens above, i could only hope for so much 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
what does love look like? i dont know but i know it is camouflaged metamorphosing cocoon one million kids fungus in my brain made me climb up high for bird to eat me 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
what stunning flowers we have left you on your door step without the petals all dried stems, all full of thorns the petals we scattered in the wind to scent the warming night for all the lovers still intertwined 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
even when i look away i see you 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
the great buddha once said eat pray love or live laugh lament or om om om whatever it was it was the password to nirvana, a temple made of pure gold full of diamonds and precious stones and sex and steaks and a robust healthcare system and an innovative education model and good infrastructure and no bad pollution stuff and love and a kiss on the forehead, 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
ice cream on sidewalk gum in hair white dog poo hair gel human driven car really large tv screen are all things of the past 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
imagine a love so large a whale’s penis would be tiny next to it the whale would say “i actually have a massive cock, that love is just too big,” as it vaped away into the sunset 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
without you i am in the shadow of the leaf. without you i am the the algae that blooms 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
within the beast there is a beauty within a beauty there is a booty bubble butt bubble bubble bubble bubble butt 2023
acrylic on canvas
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
no one is listening to the flowers anymore if anyone would listen, they would hear them say "get that bee to pollinate me again, me horny" but really it would sound like "bzzz bzz bzzzz bzzz bzzzbbzzbzbzzb me horny" i dont fucking know can you just pass me the honey honey 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason-Phu--install-STATION--20231109-DSC1063-edit
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
10 flowers i picked at a cemetery and left on your door step, now you’re haunted by their ghosts and the cops think you are the cemetery flower robber
2023
Installation View
Photo: Simon Strong
Jason Phu
when pigs fly so will people and then we’ll be able to have sky sex and that will be fucking awesome dude 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
oh what joy to find that the grass is indeed greener on the other side is what the pokies addicts said before they tumbled into the well where the villagers emptied their shit buckets 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
there was a town that danced from dusk to dawn and made love every day for ninety days straight without sleep without food or water with only wine and beer and rum and then one day they stopped and no one talked of it again until they stopped remembering and now the town is rubble and dust and stray cats and covered in thick vines that bloom the most beautiful white flower every spring 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
the memory of your scent is just the sweat of a dogs testicles 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
i stared into your eyes and there was a deep dark abyss or abscess im not sure whatever it is you should go get it checked out 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
im tired of painting flowers 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
when i see you i think about sex 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
i picked this for you from the swamp of my desires, i dug my claws into the muck of the river and pulled it all out, roots, worms, mud, centipedes, scorpions, a lake full of my naughty thoughts for everyone to marvel at, for everyone to gape at, for everyone to screen record and turn viral and for me to become tiktok famous and for taylor swift to invite me on stage or maybe for the rock to @ me in one of his posts or for zeus itself to smite my brains out with a well aimed throw of a metaphysical cartoonishly drawn lighting bolt from the heavens above, i could only hope for so much 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
what does love look like? i dont know but i know it is camouflaged metamorphosing cocoon one million kids fungus in my brain made me climb up high for bird to eat me 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
what stunning flowers we have left you on your door step without the petals all dried stems, all full of thorns the petals we scattered in the wind to scent the warming night for all the lovers still intertwined 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
even when i look away i see you 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
the great buddha once said eat pray love or live laugh lament or om om om whatever it was it was the password to nirvana, a temple made of pure gold full of diamonds and precious stones and sex and steaks and a robust healthcare system and an innovative education model and good infrastructure and no bad pollution stuff and love and a kiss on the forehead, 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
ice cream on sidewalk gum in hair white dog poo hair gel human driven car really large tv screen are all things of the past 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
imagine a love so large a whale’s penis would be tiny next to it the whale would say “i actually have a massive cock, that love is just too big,” as it vaped away into the sunset 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
without you i am in the shadow of the leaf. without you i am the the algae that blooms 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
within the beast there is a beauty within a beauty there is a booty bubble butt bubble bubble bubble bubble butt 2023
acrylic on canvas
195.0 × 90.0 cm
Jason Phu
no one is listening to the flowers anymore if anyone would listen, they would hear them say "get that bee to pollinate me again, me horny" but really it would sound like "bzzz bzz bzzzz bzzz bzzzbbzzbzbzzb me horny" i dont fucking know can you just pass me the honey honey 2023
acrylic on linen
195.0 × 90.0 cm