From the first view of Sean Go’s Victory Road exhibit, one gets an immediate shot of schmaltzy sentiment from the paintings. Go’s paintings, inspired by the popular anime TV show and video game series Pokémon, stylistically and topically induces one into a state of hopefulness related to one’s personal feelings on the show.
Shown in Secret Fresh Gallery in Greenhills from June 2 to 14, the artist utilizes the hook of the multigenerational gaming brand to discuss his own artistic journey in finding optimism and independence in works outside his lane. Pokémon as a series encourages effort, exploration, and the ability to deal with setbacks. And as artists, many find the same obstacles there as well.
“What an apt metaphor for life, right?” Go said. “This exhibit is about celebrating our shared experiences and the unique paths we take.”
Sean Go’s use of nostalgia to evoke hope and optimism for our life’s journeys comes out through the unique artstyle he adopts. His utilization of color and strokes comes across as a mimicry of a child’s crayon-fueled drawings.
At first glance, there’s nothing to see but the strange approach. For example, there’s a mismatch of colors and shades and how they seem to leak out at times. The strokes can feel a bit chaotic in it composition. Even at first glance the sizing at the foreground and background feels disproportionate.
And yet, as one looks closer, you see the deliberate approach to showcase such childishness into being. The painting of the Blastoise seems to blend into the background, but upon closer inspection, one can see the layers of colors used to create the glowy feeling that lets it bleed there. And the Bulbosaur painting uses deliberate zig-zaggy strokes in its body to evoke that childlike unsurety in their approach.
The approach certainly scans different when compared to other nostalgia-baiting works inside and outside art. When corporations approach nostalgia in different mediums, whether film or video games or the like, there’s a sense of cleanliness which stamps down the complexity of the material. Here, however, Victory Road feels ragged in the edges, capturing our static, snow-y nostalgia as they would appear in our minds.
Victory Road references a level in the Pokémon games where one is given a hard challenge to prove one’s self as one of the best in the region before moving forward to a different level. Go himself said that the level thrilled him when he played the games.
“Just hearing the phrase ‘Victory Road’ gives me the chills. I remember stocking up on revives, max repels, and ultra potions, preparing for the ultimate test,” he said.
The exhibit, as a whole, does not leave that space of pump-up nostalgia it pursues. In fact, if one does not know the specific central reference being touted, it becomes hard to scrutinize its overall meaning.
Most of the paintings themselves offer little clue of how they connect to that central metaphor. That’s an unfortunate feature of utilizing references as the center of art, only those who understand the code can understand the meaning.
But the paintings look great in a hazy, deliberate way, and Sean Go’s artistic approach in recreating the childhood staple feels especially unique in how it balances the cartoonish aspects of the original source material and the more deconstructive elements he puts into the style. Victory Road requires a working knowledge to enter, but once one does, it gives a sense of hope in how the journey of our lives is in our hands.
Related reading: Reinventing Heritage: Revolutionizing the Future Through Nostalgia
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