In the same vein as 2021’s Bling Dynasty, which explored contemporary (pre-pandemic) global consumerism by bringing together Chinese and Western culture and artistic styles in provocative visual hybrids, Space Rich will again entice viewers by its incorporation of recognizable figures and icons from pop culture and luxury brands in its compositions. Apart from The Happy Donor, which was commissioned by McCafé Hong Kong as part of the well-received group exhibition SubXture at the K11 Art Mall earlier in 2022, all works featured in Space Rich are created in 2021-2023 and have not been exhibited before.
In Chang’s new works, instantly recognizable images from global pop and consumer culture—such as characters from well-known animated sitcoms and video game, and iconic logos from luxury fashion houses—are figured as central motifs within compositions that recall traditional Chinese artistic mediums, techniques and iconography. The resulting visual juxtaposition offers a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the dominating influence of Chinese consumer power on the global marketplace. By situating icons from Western pop culture into unmistakably Chinese compositions, these works also reflect on the ubiquitous advertising by global luxury brands to suit ever-changing trends and the shifting demographics with buying power.
Mukashi Mukashi (translating to “Once upon a time” in Japanese) is the first solo print exhibition by Bao Ho in collaboration with The Stallery & L’Epicerie Fine HK.
Bao Ho, an artist born and based in Hong Kong, has been passionate about drawing since her childhood. After working as a graphic designer for several years, Bao was introduced to the world of street art during a chance visit to Milan. Following her discovery of this new form of expression that would later come to define her style, Bao settled down back in her home city to pursue her art full time.
Boms (b. 1990) is a graffiti artist working in Hong Kong. Starting out in his early practice with acrylic on canvas, Boms strayed away from the traditional medium after discovering street dancing and hip-hop at the age of 17. It was through the local hip-hop scene that he was exposed to graffiti art for the first time, and its down-to-earth power in capturing city dwellers’ attention with bursts of creativity soon also captured his artistic imagination. He started to devote himself to spray-painting murals and is now one of Hong Kong’s most recognizable street artists.
“My favorite part of graffiti is its down-to-earth rawness. It is also a kind of connection between me and the city that I can literally see, that constantly reminds me of where I’m from.”
With this series, Chang’s goal was to create visual, cultural, and historical hybrids. The compositions in the works allude to the classical iconography of important European paintings since the Renaissance; at the same time, they are populated by many instantly recognisable characters lifted from a contemporary mass culture originating from the U.S. and Japan. Through juxtaposing the art-historical significance of famous paintings with the global popularity of cartoon and anime figures, Chang fuses the Western artistic tradition with our contemporary visual culture and elevate the truth, beauty, and wisdom that he sees in both.
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This series of acrylic, glue and printed paper works referencing pop-culture including Anime and Pokemon Go, subcultures which are now ubiquitous in Hong Kong, takes aim at the heart of modern-day consumerism and our rapidly escalating obsession with validation and reward through our need to accumulate ‘things.’ The ‘experiment,’ pushes this further, with Chang willing to sacrifice these works by offering them up to the mercy of the general public, who will be granted 30 minutes during the opening night in which to tear the works in whichever way they see fit, all whilst fully documenting their experience on social media. Attendees will be required to sign a ‘Terms and Conditions’ document in order to participate, enforcing the requirement to record and disseminate the process on social media in order to ensure it generates new artistic expression.
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In early 2016, Ernest Chang was given the permission to use his photographic lens to document the interior of the almost 100 years old Blue House in Wan Chai, a Hong Kong symbol of heritage preservation, before it was revamped and revitalized.
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The Super Urban Series consists of nine photographs shot around Hong Kong Island, stylized into the textured, densely colored panels of a comic book. With its sense of heightened reality, the series explores the most down-to-earth scenes and atmospheres in the urban spaces of Hong Kong.
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Spanning the mediums of digital photography and painting, artist Ernest Chang’s latest series, “Post-Human Dimension”, merges his characteristic realist aesthetic with surrealist compositions superimposed in clean, detailed white lines to explore human interactions with the urban environment in the digital age.
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The Frozen Fusion Series was created in collaboration with Artist Justin Y, whose finger paintings form the background in the five images. The series was created with time-lapse photographs taken at the Canon Studios. The series compresses and flattens the dimensions of time, length, height and width into two-dimensional works, showing the power of photography to manipulate the visual and physical world.
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The Falsely Implied Series imposes new dimensions and spatial symmetry onto familiar street scenes in Hong Kong. The five intricate compositions overlay multiple photographs of Wan Chai’s historic streets to create symmetrical visual matrices of neon-tinged roads and buildings, bringing out the vibrant lights and colors of a gentrifying neighborhood. This mix of photographic images and stylized, contrastive colors enliven a historic neighborhood in the heart of Hong Kong.
All artworks in the series are printed with high-quality oil ink on canvas.
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The Look Sideways So It's A Car Series consists of four digital paintings created from images of speeding automobiles. The series plays on the technique used in many contemporary pieces involving ambiguous images that obstruct the instinctive human reaction to perceive objects as a whole. Because of the artist's color-blindness, the paintings are in gaudy primary colors, distracting viewers from seeing the cars that are clearly visible sideways.
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The Morph Series is an experimental project consisting of periodically added portraits. The photographs in the series are symmetrical compositions placed side by side to form mirror images that speak to contrasting perspectives of perception. Each diptych consists of a positive and a negative version of the mirrored portrait, creating a visual balance that is at once decorative and contemplative.
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The Explicable Visual Disability Series plays on visual perception. The three diptychs in the series are based on photographs taken during a Chinese New Year fireworks display. The color, orientation, layering, positioning and verbal text in the works break up the compositions into seemingly disparate parts, obstructing viewers’ attempt at making out the uniform whole.
The text on the top layer of the works draws viewers’ attention as they instinctively try to read it. As decoding words is a function of the left brain, the placement of text in the works playfully inhibits the right brain, supposedly the more perceptive hemisphere that enables artistic appreciation.
All artworks are digitally printed using high quality print on canvas.
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The I'MMORTAL Series consists of paintings inspired by the mortality of six famous Western thinkers and intellectuals with complex inner worlds. Famous quotes by the six subjects are conspicuously imprinted onto the figures’ physical forms, combining language and semiotics into one singular focus in the composition.
All artworks are digitally printed using high-quality print on canvas.
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The Outcast Series was originally designed to be printed on a summer dress. The series consists of three digital media prints depicting glowing fireflies and one depicting a glowing light bulb in playful contrast.
These prints are available as high-quality prints on canvas.
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The Untitled Sharing Series consists of eight experimental digital media prints with heightened textures that attempt to show what people with visual disabilities see. With a bit of imagination on the viewer’s part, the images can become more vivid or more elusive. The images are based on the illustration of a man and a woman sharing a cigarette, an act that captures a telling moment as two people bond. The viewer’s focus is instantly drawn to the distortions as they make out what they are looking at: are the lines scratches on a wall, or just random doodles on paper? The true story lurks mysteriously behind the playful visual illusions.
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