Huang Ko Wei at Gallery Vacancy

Artist: Huang Ko Wei

Exhibition title: False Mirror

Venue: Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, China

Date: March 4 – April 15, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Gallery Vacancy

Gallery Vacancy is pleased to announce Huang Ko Wei’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, False Mirror, on view from March 4 to April 15, 2023. Deriving from the Surrealist painter René Magritte’s work, The False Mirror (1929), Huang’s exhibition presents a series of recent paintings that experiments with new motifs, contents, and compositional possibilities beyond his adept painting techniques. In the exhibition, the artist delves into the illusional nature of painting, alluding to its mirroring effect upon the perception of the self.

Throughout this series of paintings, the idea of the mirror is often vaguely indicated, introduced via the reflections of painted subjects. In Scatter (2022), a figure that occupies the off-centered composition is mirrored by a distant surface across, revealing an alternative perspective of viewing. Simultaneously, a cat that dominates the lower center of the canvas retreats into the background yet is immediately confronted by its own facial reflection. These two sets of subject-reflection create a sense of spatial illusion: the invisible reflective devices tacitly shape the horizontal canvas, piecing together various perspectives on a two-dimensional surface. In Hover (2022), the artist further experiments with the depiction of motions that challenges the limited boundaries within the frame of the work, promoting the opportunity for a synchronous conversation between the portrayed subject and viewers that expands their gaze into the spatial relationship opposed to the exhibition space. While the central figure is captured leaning in observation to the surface, its proximate reflection teases out the possibility of a self-studying act. Moreover, the mirroring or reflecting of the subject is amplified by the inclusion of a still life object laden with symbolic meaning to surpass the immediacy of the present. At the same time, the passive presence of viewing activates the parallelism between the actions of the viewers and the painted subject, interacting unintentionally with the fictional space.

The construction of fictional space in Huang’s works involves the depiction of various combinations of pictorial planes and perspectives, constantly subverting the viewing expectation of viewers. In Flashback (2022) the flattened space is disrupted by a dark rectangle opening, where the central figure is either withdrawing into or emerging out of; the opening, however, simultaneously suggests a mirror surface, a speculation enhanced by the high-contrast lighting imposed on the figure’s torso. The absent light source forges a different layer of interaction between the static canvas and its imagined environment. The theatrical use of light is also evident in Fog (2022), which radiates a dog that hops into an archway. The light effect and linear perspective both contribute to foreground the archway; a permeable opening promises a consistent background yet instantly rattles the assumption by shifting focus to indicate a different plane.