“Immortality”, photography by Carol Kwok, organized by Art For All Society (AFA), will run from April 1 to May 15, 2011 at AFA showroom. A group of 20 photographs, which are very coherent display of artistry, knowledge and technique, will showcase during the exhibition.
“Immortality”, presented as a collection of taxidermic mountings and decaying flowers portraits, is a maverick post-conceptualist body of work. These strong images, despite their life-like results, have a synthetic flavor. A ‘seasoning’ that is mainly provided by the use of the plastic Holga and classy Hasselblad photographic cameras. The objective refusal on obtaining images through digital camera lens, most popular in our days, shows how nonconformist these depictions are and how unique they turn out to be.
The ambiguities of depth, created by the camera lens and the contrasting high quality of the prints, have a strong relationship with the fragility and precariousness of position found in the way we deal with the idea of mortality and immortality in daily life. This lavish artistic gesture of using an unusual method of capturing images along with an elevated presentation maximizes the overall effect, adding substance, as well as intimacy. There’s a personal wisdom that has much to do with the qualities that we find desirable, or undesirable, in a work of art, in the sense that is able to create an experience of its own.
Perhaps animals and flowers are never ‘free’ and this ‘lab test’ is not derived from a simple circumstantial observation and reveals a wealth of meanings. In reality the animals and flowers in “Immortality” seem to be booby-trapped, framed as objects of ‘beauty’. The aspect of the artistic endeavor and the importance of constant interpretation and re-interpretation, for meaning, are never static, and these are poetic views that use the subjects as cryptograms as much as metaphors for the composite issue of life and death. As thoughts of questioning, of placing ideas, of what is mortal and immortal spring to mind, however, so do the departure that they imply.
“Immortality” is a startlingly consistent first solo exhibition of an artist born in Macau, educated in USA and worked in UK. It’s an art of disguises and maneuver, where a stuffed crocodile share our mind space with a decaying water lotus, which shows a precise and conscious style in a specific practice and interest. Always a delayed addition the impression of “Immortality” is difficult to see until a sudden flash of light obscures what was not visible before.
The opening of this exhibition will take place at 6:30pm on Friday, 1 of April at AFA Macau, which located on Rua. Francisco X. Pereira No.45-49. FL-3, Ed. Lun Hing Knitting Factory, Macau. The exhibition period will last till 15 of May and the opening hours are from 10 am to 7 pm every day. For enquiry, please call: 2836 6064 or email: afamacao@gmail.com.
"Immortality "- Photography by Carol Kok
Artist: Carol Kok
Curator: José Drummond
Opening: April 1(Fri) 18:30
