New nomadic gallery MAST opens its first show in Shoreditch
We sat down with founder Mark Stevenson to discuss the process of setting the gallery up and it's first exhibition, Phan Thanh Minh's Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone...
May 11, 2023
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
Gallery MAST was founded by Mark Stevenson in 2023 to support, foster, and introduce established and emerging international artists to the UK. The gallery’s conviction is that living with art is for everyone, and MAST aims to encourage anyone with an interest in and appreciation of art to become a collector of original works.
The gallery works closely with artists to develop fresh and engaging shows that best reflect their practice and showcase their work to new audiences within the exhibition space. Aesthetically, the gallery’s focus is on works that are strong on concept, form, and palette, with a particular interest in sculpture and works on canvas.
MAST’s inaugural show will be Đá Rông (The Hollowed Stone) 12-14 May 2023, consisting of nineteen works on canvas by Phan Thanh Minh painted between 2015 and 2023. Phan Thanh Minh was born in 1976 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts University (the Gia Dinh) in 2007. After graduating he returned to his hometown, Hoi An, a colonial port city, from where he has since worked.
Minh’s paintings deal with feelings of rage, anger, and discontentment, stemming from his reflections on familial disputes, local corruption, trivial inconveniences and political strife. His emotion is visible in his brushwork and the application of paint, his bright palette sometimes tender but often furious.
Phan Thanh Minh’s vibrant portraits reference cubism in the motion they convey through breaking the face into distorted plains of colour. Minh has said of his work that “All such colours are like obsession, as they somewhat express my furies; at times I wanted to caress, to rub them slightly, but at other times I wanted to strongly rake and throw colours on the surface of my painting, not aiming at satisfying my emotions, but I somewhat felt crazily satisfied upon seeing my intention gradually appearing.”
Subjects in The Hollowed Stone range from portraiture of family, friends, and Minh himself. Visceral emotion is certainly conveyed in his figurative work, particularly his expressive faces. His self-portraits particularly convey a high sense of introspection, while other paintings in the series are more abstract representations of thoughts and feelings.
In Retrospection, the body of an older woman is juxtaposed with an apple, the latter being a Vietnamese metaphor for the passing of time. In Disturbance a figure on the right seems consoled by petting a sad looking black dog - or perhaps the figure is consoling the dog? - while on the left a woman looks back resentfully, comforted from behind by a man. In Fidelity, we see a similar black dog silhouetted on a polka dot blanket a reddish-form morphs into a woman lying naked under the covers, her arm hiding her face, the title hints at a possible contention.
Both Agitation and Study in Blue link back to the idea of time passing and movement, at first they seem to be a group of people but on closer inspection both paintings use the motif of a single figure rendered in five consecutive poses. Untitled, 2015 is perhaps the darkest of the series, a sombre Basquiat-like abstraction of figures.
We sat down with MAST’s founder Mark to find out about more about the gallery and its first show:
What first sparked your interest in art?
I kind of came to art pretty late in life; my early interests were more in spaces, and particularly how the layout of homes gives them a particular feel. I was obsessed with peristylia, and always thought my grandparents’ Irish farmhouse would benefit from one. I studied a fair amount of Mycenaean and Cycladic art at university, but only really got into art after I graduated. I was invited to Frieze by some Dallas art collectors in 2012 and that was probably my first encounter with art outside of an institutional art history setting. I fell completely in love with an oversized Lubaina Himid (naively phoning the gallery for the price) and some Etel Adnans at Sfeir Semler, and I guess I was hooked (albeit without the relevant funds). My first acquisitions were the usual - a few ‘lovely’ Hampstead Flask Walk finds, a €10 Lachapelle poster that cost far more to frame, bits from auction houses… Anyway, I ended up ‘doing’ interiors, and I guess I just came to appreciate the fundamental role that art has in shaping a successful interior - one that exhibits more of the owner’s personality than the decorator’s ego and trade discount networks. Most interior designers fill their projects either with overpriced Hotel Art multiples or mawkish dawbs picked up for a penny at provincial auction houses. I don’t have a problem per se with either of those genres, but the underrepresentation of new original works is just a bit annoying.
What was the motivation for MAST’s focus on international artists?
Well, I love travelling and managed to do a lot before I got a dog, and I’ve always found that artists based abroad just produce stuff that’s a bit different. I do love discovering new works at graduate shows in the UK (my most commented-upon piece is by Or Lapid, one of last year’s Slate MFA graduates), but I’m just more drawn to works inspired (usually subconsciously) by totally foreign circumstances.
The gallery ethos is art is for everyone, will the gallery focus on attracting first time buyers of art?
Not exclusively: we’re looking to bring new work to London, so hopefully we’ll be able to put on shows that attract both existing collectors and first-time buyers. For existing collectors we want to offer them something new, and for first time buyers we want to take the fluff out of buying art, and make it less bullshitty and intimidating. What we’re not looking to do is to sell art as an investment: I’ve always found it snake oil salesman stuff when gallerists advise that it’s ‘a good time to buy’. Art-as-investment has completely screwed up the market, and the vast majority of ‘collectors’ would be much better advised to focus on their day jobs. Obviously, we believe that the artists we take on are good and fresh and interesting, and our goal is to increase their exposure and help them to develop their practice and their reputations, but I could never tell a buyer that they should take a work as an investment.
How should those new to the art world decide what to buy and where to start with collecting?
Oh, just buy something you like. Don’t worry about what other people will think or whether it’ll ‘fit’, and learn to recognise gallerists’ sales techniques. Stand in front of a piece, try to imagine it in a nicer frame, and if you’re drawn to it and it says something to you, buy it! And then try to meet the artist and get to know them a bit - they’re mostly really nice and delighted that their works are being enjoyed.
How did you find Phan Thanh Minh and why did you choose him for your first show?
I was mulling the idea of the gallery for quite a while, but the initial idea (something from Zimbabwe) just required a trip that I hadn’t gotten round to doing. In December I was on holiday in Vietnam, which happily included lots of great art. One day we were in a smallish town, walked into Minh’s gallery/studio/home, and I was bowled over. In addition to really liking his work, Minh is a great guy with zero pretensions and just wants to paint in the day and drink beers with his neighbours in the evening. He’s been painting for an absolute age, which I think you can see in the composition and handling of his work, and he does have some collectors in the US and Europe but had never been shown outside of Vietnam. I couldn’t stop thinking about his work over Christmas, so booked a flight in January to get the ball rolling!
Phan Thanh Minh: Đá rông/The Hollowed Stone is showing at MAST Gallery from 12th-14th May.
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
