Hurricane Of Angels

I came to the Art Space in the evening.

- Le Thanh Hai

The spacious café at the Anantara Hoi An Resort had several guests having dinner at the tall central table. There are lots of photos and paintings; black and white and coloured on the walls and along the path to the inside. Impressive photo portraits by Réhahn on the raw cement wall and images of ordinary street scenes hanging in a row caught my attention. After a while looking at the pictures, I asked the waiter where the newly launched art work, “Hurricane of Angels” by Janie Lawson, was, as I was invited to Anantara Hoi An Reosrt at its opening, but couldn’t arrange the trip on time. The waiter invited me to sit on the sofa in the front area of the café where there was something twinkling above and moving gently. He said this is a Hurricane of Angels. I sat down and looked up with suspicion. My imagination of angels must have come from classical art where angels are beautiful babies in white or nicely dressed girls with wings. And here I first saw something like dragonflies and looking closely, I saw figures of men made in forms of bones with wings. They evoked a mixture of feelings–tiny creatures, severe, hard, extreme with sparkling diamonds on their wings. They were swinging gently when a breeze came by, and when we talked to each other, they seemingly also made whispering sounds. It was interesting that those angels can react to the conversation of the people around the table, as they are very light, and the noise from the conversation can make them swing, cling together or part. Then the waiter led me to the second Hurricane of Angels. The artwork hung above a sleeping chair.I couldn’t resist laying down and watching hundreds of angels silently and gently move above me.

The next morning, I met Janie Lawson, the author of the sculptures that altered my imagination of angels and strongly provoked my curiosity. Janie Lawson was very sweet and open to share her story of the artwork.