Galerie Steph and Lisa Botos are proud to present P.O.V. Alternative Perspectives in Asian Contemporary Photography, an exhibition featuring nine artists from Asia who transgress traditional practices to experiment with the unorthodox in photography and its materials.
These nine participating artists who will challenge preconceived notions of the medium are: anothermountainman (Hong Kong), Chen Man (China), Chihiro Kabata (Japan), Ina Jang (South Korea), Kacey Wong (Hong Kong), Mimi Youn (South Korea), Wei Leng Tay (Singapore), Xing Danwen (China), and Yian Huang (Singapore).
Their investigations push at the often narrowly defined boundaries of the medium to yield strong conceptual works, with some exploring relationships across different disciplines and others opposing the conventional processes of photography.
Mashing together fashion, photography and digital media, Chen Man creates arresting images that highlight the beauty of Asian women. Blending diverse fields, Kacey Wong brings his architectural training and social activism to his satirical installations and performance art, which he then transposes onto print.
Just as Kacey Wong’s works are concerned with socio-cultural issues, so are those of anothermountainman and Xing Danwen, both of whom explore the dramas and desires of urban living. For Wei Leng Tay and Yian Huang, intimacy is central to their practice: Yian Huang seeks to connect with his subjects through his camera, while Wei Leng Tay explores her subjects’ lives in the very place they call home.
Seeing the limitations of conventional processes, Ina Jang and Mimi Youn physically alter their photographs: Mimi Youn etches the surface of her Polaroids with her most intimate emotions while Ina Jang plays and subverts the two-dimensional quality of print by pasting on paper shapes and forms. Their practice recognise photographs as both image and object. Chihiro Kabata’s inventive use of ink-jet paper, on which to hand-draw her exquisitely amebic forms, speaks of the medium’s materiality and its appropriation by artists outside of photography.
Image: © Chen Man, Galerie Steph
