I’ll Be Your Mirror

Opening: Saturday, August 10, 4-7pm

Inspired by the Velvet Underground song of the same name, this show explores issues of self-perception; how we see ourselves, how others see us and how we want others to see us.

Adrian Wong and David Boyce present a series of unconventional “commercial” family photographs which explore the concept of “face”; Wang Taocheng creates a series of layered portraits that depict the multiple sides of an individual and Chen Cheng uses a pastiche of human, organic and corporeal imagery to present a depiction of the self in various dimensions. Meanwhile, Shi Jing conjures up the idea of dimensions in a more physical sense with a series of portraits, which reveal two very different countenances of the subject depending upon the angle of the light.

Ailadi Cortelletti takes the issue to the level of performance, creating drawings on joss paper which depict her own personal principles, which are then ceremonially burned. Zheng Wenxin offers up a work which talks about the individual’s need to compartmentalize oneself — to place identity in a hermetically sealed container. And finally, Wu Gaozhong, the artist whose work inspired this show, creates a series of ornate mirror sculptures covered completely in fur. This powerful metaphor speaks to the idea that no matter how objective and analytical we try to be, our powers of self-reflection are really quite primitive, scarcely more developed than those of the animal kingdom.