Often using repurposed items, Chun Hei Kong introduces new ways of seeing the mundane with a focus on material and symbolic re-interpretation.
Read MoreBorn in Hong Kong in 1987, Chung Hei Kong studied in the Fine Arts Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, graduating in 2009.
Chun Hei Kong's practice, which ranges from drawing, video, animation and installation, examines and intervenes in fundamental structures, from objects to space.
Drawing is fundamental to Kong's practice, from which ideas and images are transplanted to other mediums. Using pen and black ink, the artist captures the surface of familiar objects to find different ways of seeing, or what he calls, 'how to see in an age when the only thing certain is uncertainty.'
The 48-minute video Hand Practice (2017) details hand exercises Kong performs prior to drawing. Gestures that appear simple at first reveal the tiring act over time, speaking to the dexterity and endurance involved in prologued engagement with artistic practices.
These motions are echoed in Non-stop Stop (2019), a single-channel video depicting a pair of hands that appear to be clapping without ever meeting.
For his solo exhibition Raise the Dimness at Taipei's TKG+, Kong used the gallery space to create tension between individual works as a mirror into tensions found in the everyday.
Standoff (2019), the centrepiece, is a wall-spanning installation with a few dozen darts attached, illuminated by LED lights to create the impression that they are moving in one direction—only, opposite from the dartboard positioned on the wall behind.
Constructed from tempered glass on a sliding track in front of a gallery window, The Sliding Myth (2020) appears to present the outcome of a natural disaster along its surface, which looks to be fortified with tape. Another series of paintings, Highly Transparent I—III (all 2019), show equally misleading surfaces, appearing to be framed photographs, but in fact comprise black-and-white watercolours.
An older work, Be free from your burden of luscious color (2017), presents a more overt statement with a florescent electric bug zapper shifting between pink, green, purple and blue coloured light, contrasting Kong's monochrome repurposed objects and surfaces.
In Absent Minded at TKG+, Taipei, Kong explored the idea of self-restoration by examining the meaning of Chinese characters and objects, such as surveillance cameras and electricity meters, which take on different meanings within the gallery context set up by the artist.
In the wall-based installation Fulfill (2022), a surveillance camera faces an electricity box on the wall, with the energy consumption measured, recorded and projected. The work comments on the idea of self-contemplation in the measurement of energy consumed.
Feedback (step by step) (2023) invites viewers to enter a corridor paved with a grid of weighing scales with their numbers erased. The weight indicator rotates on its own, reflecting the solitary nature and activity of self-measurement.
For his 2023 exhibition at Para Site, Hong Kong, Kong explored new lines of inquiry within daily life and its modes of production, utilising the paratext as a metaphor.
Site-specific commissions, such as Stairs (2023), which comprises a small staircase connecting two rooms using scraps and debris gathered from the construction process of Para Site's new gallery for experimental, process-driven projects, which Kong was invited to inaugurate.
Breakdown (2023) collages materials taken from Para Site's warehouse and previous publications causing them to take another shape, which will change according to the sunlight's intensity and time of day, while Aftertaste (2023) spins dust collected from human activity inside the gallery to speak to the strong sensory experience Kong had entering the space during the construction process, the resulting small cyclone a metaphor for activities Kong observed in the gallery's offices.
Chun Hei Kong is the recipient of the Gaylord Chan Painting Award; Cheung's Fine Arts Awards; Y.S Hui Fine Arts Award; and Grotto Fine Arts Award (all 2019).
Chun Hei Kong's work has been shown widely in Asia, Europe and the U.K.
Select solo exhibitions include: Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); TKG+, Taipei (2022); Art Basel Hong Kong (2021); Crane Gallery, Kaohsiung; Last Tango, Zurich (both 2018); Gallery Exit, Asia Now Paris (2016); Gallery Exit, Artissima, Torino (2014); Gallery Exit, Art Taipei (2012); and Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (2010).
Selected group exhibitions include: Hong-gah Museum, Taipei; YZ space, Taipei; Gallery Du Monde, Hong Kong (2023); JC Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Kiang Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); Taikang Space, Beijing (2018); CFCCA, Manchester (2017); Simon Lee, Hong Kong (2016); Silverlens, Manila (2015); and Osage Gallery, Hong Kong (2010).
The artist is represented by TKG+, Taipei.
Ocula | 2023
