Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds. These portraits explore the relationship between the psyche and contemporary social environments, focusing on isolation, identity, and distress. Central Station shows a character reaching to wipe a tear from her face as the blues of her wardrobe seem to blend in with the dismal blue of the background. In each of the portraits, Lai explores how individuals adapt to their environments and the ways in which bodies communicate emotions for which there are no adequate words.
Firenze Lai is a Hong Kong painter known for her atmospheric portraits that explore the ways in which contemporary life causes people to adjust to their surrounding conditions in disturbing ways. She paints by immersing herself in the state of mind and situation of each character. Her work was exhibited at the New Museums 2015 Triennial and the Shanghai Biennale (2014).
Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...
Justice (2014) presents viewers with a curious assemblage: a wooden gallows with slightly curved spindles protruding from the topmost plank, which in turn is covered with rudimentary netting, the threads slackly dangling like a loose spider’s web or an rib cage that’s been cracked open...
Uncertain Pilgrimage is an ongoing project in which Moore draws from his unplanned travels in recent years...
Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...
In addition to Yang’s signature drying rack and light bulbs, Office Voodoo includes various office supplies like CDs, paper clips, headphones, a computer mouse, a stamp, a hole puncher, a mobile phone charger...
The Illusion of Everything (2014) follows an unseen pedestrian as he navigates the Australian city of Melbourne’s dense and intricate network of laneways...
John Houck’s brown- , sienna- and golden-toned composition, Untitled #185, 65, 535 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 16 colors , features densely packed lines of color moving diagonally across the creased page...
Last Postcards is a series of three small double-sided paintings on plywood in which Biernoff imagines the last communications from explorers lost in the wilderness...
A steel clothing rack adorned with turbine vents, Moroccan vintage jewelry, pinecones and knitting yarn, these heterogeneous elements are used here to create an exotic yet undefined identity within the work...
Long Long Live (2013) takes the viewer to the setting of the Oasis Villa on Green Island, once a reform and re-education prison to house political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period...
It may take a minute to recognize the background of New Fall Lineup – the colors are tweaked into a world of cartoon and candy, and it is covered by leaping energetic figures and flying squirrels...
In Tapitapultas (2012), Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker comment on mass consumerism and pollution by way of a game they invented...
In her recent work, Biernoff is interested in investigating fictions and fantasies embedded in the remnants of consumer culture (for example magazines) or through ephemera such as postcards and old photographs...
Baby Shoes, Never Worn is part of photographer John Houck’s series of restrained still-life photographs capturing objects from his childhood...
Converting is a piece about the Orang Laut, often called Sea Nomads, that inhabited the Riau archipelago...
In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...
Conrad Ruiz loves to paint subjects related to the “boy zone”: video games, weapons, games, science fiction, fantasy, and special effects...