Description
There are great stories behind paintings. What would it be if the content in the paintings are taken away from the original context, and are placed in Hong Kong nowadays? Six modern photos intertextualize six famous paintings, telling you six different stories which you are familiar with but in a very different way. In the past, Father creates Adam and transfer spiritual energy. And now, when a common father raises his son in Hong Kong, what would he give his son? Would the answer be anything spiritual or anything else we are familiar with? These six photos present more than six social issues in a way you have never experienced. You can look at these six photos individually, in pairs, or as a whole, having your instant interpretation of the stories. Also, you can read these six photos as paintings, discover the details which put in the set intentionally, analyze the hidden symbolic meaning, and recreate stories that we come across every day.
Artist Statement
After finishing The Killers, I keep on studying paintings. I read through the history and found that the stories in paintings are familiar. Actually, nowadays we are repeating history but in another way. So I start my idea of making this series of photos. Before being a photography student, I asked myself the question “How long does a photograph live?” If a photo taken by a master, even just a snapshot, it lasts forever. But how about our snapshots? Do they live for 1 second for a glance? We tend to watch a photo, to look at a photo, to glance at a photo. Photography is not a fast-food. Photographers spend months and years to take one photo. Is it a joke when it turns out the photo worth being watched for 1 second? Should we respect more? Besides playing with the content of the paintings, I adopt the presentation from paintings. Titian paints a dog implying fidelity. Hans Holbein the Younger drew an anamorphic skull encouraging us to read a painting from a different angle. Those tiny details enhance the readability of the pieces. Everything inside the frame does not appear by chance, so does photography. The bra on the sofa is not an accident. It is a hint, a puzzle, a linkage for you to read, not only for six independent photos but also through six correlated paintings.
Reference
The Creation of Adam (1511) – Michelangelo
Whistler’s Mother (1871) – James McNeill Whistler
American Gothic (1930) – Grant Wood
Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593) – Caravaggio
Liberty Leading the People (1830) – Eugène Delacroix
The Gleaners (1857) – Jean-François Millet
Featured in
Photo World issue Sept/2011, CHINA
HK Tatler issue June/2010, HK
Hong Kong Headline, 28Jun2010, HK
Ming Pao, 22Sep2009, HK
PCMarket Advance #832, HK
Wen Wei Po, 6Jul2009, HK
Award
Creative Media Awards (Photography), 2009, HK