trans · figuration
Ko Shing Gallery, Hong Kong
G/F, 5A Ko Shing Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
May 18, 2017 – May 20, 2017
Opening reception: Thursday, May 18th from 6:00 - 9:00 pm
The trans · figuration exhibition represents the cumulative point for the work of four fine art graduates as they transition into the art world. The show features Hong Kong based artists Michelle Claase, Dik Luke, Inga Nelli and Sharu Sikdar, who work with a variety of media including painting, mixed media, installation and new media. Through the process of intervention and transformation, the artists reveal the ways in which they interpret the fluctuating waves of life. Although each artist has a distinct approach to artmaking, they all share the common thread of translating their unique perspectives and transient experiences into more tangible, visual forms. The show reflects an intersection of marks, lines and layers, which typifies their evolving artistic identities.
Artist Introduction
Re-Collect, 2016
Mixed Media Collage, 28.5 x 45.7 cm
#God Triptych & (detail), 2017
Mixed Media Collage, 19.5 x 93 cm
Michelle Claase
Michelle Claase (b.1989) is a South African multi-media artist, based in Hong Kong. She has participated in various group exhibitions at alternative spaces in Hong Kong, including: Disclosed (2016); Re-Format (2016); Seven (2016) and Raw (2015).
Claase focuses on themes of control and power dynamics by examining the use, overuse, and misuse of image and language in popular culture. Through a process of selecting, collecting and manipulating content from films, magazines and social media, Claase constructs works that raise questions about authorship, authority and authenticity within the mass media.
Inhibition #2, 2017
Acrylic on Canvas and Stretcher
137.7 x 108 cm
Inhibition #3, 2017
Acrylic on Canvas and Stretcher
92.7 x 78.7 cm
Dik Luke
Dik Luke (b.1989) is a mixed media artist, based in Hong Kong. He has exhibited works internationally in Hong Kong, Australia and USA. Luke’s work investigates the totality of structure in painting with the idea of the surface and support as an inseparable entity. Through repetitive processes of deconstruction and reconstruction, the artist explores the endless possibilities in how the work could be transformed, both formally and visually.
On the Far Side of Sound, 2017
Digital Print, Acrylic on Gloss Medium ‘Skins’
45 x 55 cm
Freya Series (magenta lips), 2017
Digital Photograph (sourced from social media),
Gloss Medium
20 x 26 cm
Inga Nelli
Inga Nelli (b.1983) is a German artist who lives and works in Hong Kong. She has exhibited internationally including group exhibitions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and Italy. In 2015, Nelli curated her first independent public art exhibition “Closed Eyes Opened” in collaboration with the Hong Kong Society for the Blind and the Sham Shui Po Welfare Department.
Nelli’s figurative works reveal a shifting duality of women betwixt and between their manifold identities, roles, and embodiments. The artist draws upon her personal life as an artist, a wife, and a mother as well as universal clichés of womanhood, questioning the present condition of the female.
Sky & Earth, 2017
Framed Acrylic on Wood Barks
23 x 23 cm
Untitled, 2016-2017
Branches, Leaves, Hair, Thread, Tape
180 x 180 x 186 cm (triangular platform) Height: 35 cm
Sharu Sikdar
Sharu Binnong Sikdar (b.1994) is a Hong Kong born Indian Filipino. The artist has exhibited her works in group exhibitions in Hong Kong.
As a time based artist, Sikdar focuses on the process of collecting, assembling and disassembling of objects. She is best known for utilizing natural materials as her medium. Sikdar brings attention to objects once ignored, by the action of manipulating, reconstructing and framing.