Ox Warehouse invited two Korean artists MJ Lee and Maing Heewon to engage in our Artist-in-Residence Program, investigate on the obscure stories of Macau. The two have acquainted when they were studying at the sculpture department of Sunhwa Arts School; now both came to Macau, they are baffled by the complexity and chaos in this land.
MJ Lee has taken interest in the street shrines across Macau, when she finds the statues appealing in their vibrant colors and elegant postures. At the entrance of the exhibition, MJ Lee builds an altar with a mixture of clay and gold leaf; its structure breaking, scattering into the mud and golden paint that has made up of the components. With this creation, MJ Lee sets out to study superstitious behaviors, giving way to the temporality of all existence, as she proposes: What is that we are searching in life?
In other ways, Maing Heewon is inspired by the sauna facilities in Macau. The naked bodies of Maing’s Sauna girls extrapolated as symbols of desire; at this time, the Birth of Venus has been reinterpreted, through her own understandings, to churn out in a line of delicate, sculptural bodies; placed on numbered pedestals, they are offered for observation, as though an endless row of beauty pageant contestants. The images of voluptuous female bodies are printed on thermal paper, which fine texture recalls the smoothness of skin, mapping the transformation of desire and the fleeting impressions of the city.
In this Wonderland, their outlandish perspective allows us to see Macau in a different light, as they point to the burning issues of modern insanity. Fei In Leong is the exhibition’s curator.
When: April 17–May 24, 2020
Where: Ox Warehouse, 15 Rua do Volong, GF, 1F & 2F Gallery, Macau
How much: Free admission
For more information, call +853 2853 0026, send an email to [email protected] or check the event’s Facebook page
