Henry Hu, ‘lapis_00 (details)’, 2020. Mixed media, custom-printed velvet, acrylic on custom-printed canvas. Two panels 94 x 54 x 2 cm each. Image courtesy the artist.
OPENING EVENT: Wednesday 30 March from 6:00pm at ANCA Gallery. Free to attend, no bookings required.
selected01, an exhibition of recent works by Henry Hu. Bringing together diverse media — photographs, paintings, works on glass, digital prints and video installations — these projects provide an overview of his emerging creative practice.
To be presented in dialogue with one another, the show will feature selections drawn from multiple interlocking bodies of work. Starting off in the bright light. Two sets of photographs. passing parade and shading port, BEAMS — each of the two series offers the comfort of transience, languishing in the desire to be anywhere else. The pictures call attention to those little restful moments in life, and the certainty that all disturbances eventually calm.
Sea Sore Honey Lock, a series of multimedia paintings, will set the conceptual stage for the exhibition. From paints to prints, threads to fabrics. The works distill the loss of childhood splendor, ruminating on the time before adulthood, back when everything was brand new, glaring, often exciting. In an excerpt from the series statement, Henry Hu shares:
“Children’s rhymes, myths, fables, legends. They all once filled our heads with ideas only we never seem to know what they were. This series is the reaction. An object of reverence to any and every fairy tale. Wonder tale. Magic tale. A nod to the gift of anticipation. A gleaming dive into fanaticism. A leeway in which we too become children, again. A return to that world, to recreate.
If childhood is, after all, an echo of time, every now and then, rings in a memory.
Then, with our decades of growth. In our dearest of feelings. We smile at those memories.”
Also on view are mixed-media works from series free corn ban_wih_bi_lg and @@@@capcap!!!. Conceived alongside Sea Sore Honey Lock, these pieces are the skeletal keys that unlocked the progress, the self-reflections that advanced the growth. Closing out the exhibition. Lights to dim, on display: 2x,HOLEG, digital motion works. A dazzling study of shapes and sounds.
Exercising through various mediums, Henry Hu’s emerging practice commits to an infusion. An exchange. An immediacy. A link between the interior and the exterior — of a self, a being, an identity, a consciousness. Each individual series offers an overarching narrative, steps away from the present for a spell: tasked with casting new perspectives, fresh air to breathe, a spiritual relief. Often juxtaposing the past with the future, differing forms of surrealistic fantasies unfold across his works; along with a recurring structure, the heart of all series rests in harmony.