Angela Su

Angela Su is a Hong Kong artist known for her scientific drawings and her performance works. In 2014, Su was featured in Art Radar as one of the seven most influential Asian female artists making an impact on the international art stage.[1]

Biography

Angela Su was born during the 1970s in Hong Kong. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in biochemistry in 1990 and from the Ontario College of Art with a visual arts degree in 1994.[2] Her works have been exhibited in the Second CAFAM Biennale, the 17th Biennale of Sydney, at the Saatchi Gallery and the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Exhibitions
  • 2013, In Berty We Trust!, Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong
  • 2012, Stigmatics – The Hartford Girl and Other Stories, Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong
  • 2011, A Brief History of Time, RBS Gallery, Malaysia
  • 2011, BwO, Grotto Fine Art, Hong Kong
  • 2008, Paracelsus' Garden, Grotto Fine Art, Hong Kong
  • 2006, Senninbari, Jendala Gallery at the Esplanade, Singapore Fringe Festival, Singapore
  • 2003, Mircoviolence, Fringe Club, Hong Kong
  • 2002, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Goethe-Institut Hong Kong

Selected works

Mesures et Démesures, (2015)

Mesures et Démesures is a six-minute video that begins with images of flowers with a background soundtrack of a regular tapping sound.[3] It consists of pictures of late-19th century psychiatrists, Jean-Martin Charcot, and the tests that he conducted on a patient who suffered from hysteria, a socially constructed disease that led to misuses of medical care and unjustified discrimination.[3]

Hong Kong Bestiary, (2015)

The exhibition contains various animals' paintings and focuses on the relationship between humans and animals. Although humans consider animals as living creatures, there are characteristics that define a human and animal differently, but there are resemble between the two. In the exhibition, it is portrayed that the human starts to take advantage of the animals. They intentionally use of the animals' image to solve social, moral, environmental and political issues since the animals cannot speak and fight back. The artworks aim to bring out the underlying thoughts of the animals and let the animals speak to the human.

Methods of Art, (2015)

Methods of Art is a one-minute video that was created in response to an artist interview conducted by curator Johannes Hedinger for his project Methods of Art (MoA), an international video archive of artist interviews initiated in 2013 in Germany.[4] At the beginning of the video, Su is caught into a hut by a man. Then it starts broadcasting a speech recorded by Su, in which she apologizes for wasting the audience's time to watch her video and her meaningless artworks, which has a lack of wit, absurdity, humor and urgency.[5]

Hartford Girl and other stories, (2014)

"Hartford Girl and other stories" is a combination of an 11 minute 35 second video and six photographic prints.[6] The work is a multilayered narrative documenting the process of creating the complex, inkless tattoo, composed of 39 lines or "slashes" of text, written freehand on the artist's back.[7][8] The tattoo refers to the biblical account of the number of lashes received by Jesus prior to his crucifixion.[9][1] "The Hartford Girl and Other Stories", Su further probes this subject of the experience felt by the human body. This video uses both in the video voiceover and in the text inscribed in the tattoo to be the word's narrative. For the tattoo, those are some prayers that are never completely legible to the audience, indicate an abstraction of the veiled search for forgiveness and recovery. About the video narration, it can clarify the feeling of Hartford Girl and descript the fictional character, random fact, newspaper's report, lyrics and actual self-harmers' testimonies.[10]

If the two main property of tattoo are taken away, then the tattoo is no longer for permanent and decorative. There leaving only painful. "Hartford Girl and other stories" further probes this theme of feeling perception of human body. Also, it focus to the self-mutilation carry out in present culture, and the complicate meaning that exist inside the mental and the body.

In Berty We Trust!, (2013)

In her show, Su focuses on a theme of sadomasochism.[7] Su's presented her artworks with animation, ink on drafting film and a book related to a machine named Berty.[11] It was a new illustrated book presented with a set of drawings and a video animation of machine-body hybrids. It told a story of a factory worker who became a serial killer, was raped by a machine and gave birth to an abnormal child. The idea is about the extreme effects caused by over-dependence on technology. The book included Su's drawings, a postscript by the artist Nadim Abbas and an 18,000-word novella created by her Asia Art Archive colleague Mary Lee.[12]

BwO, (2011)

BwO, or Body without Organs is an idea introduced by Gilles Deleuze to describe a virtual body without stable structures. In her drawings, Su used the concept of pain to influence our organic sensory and to break down the establishment so as to demonstrate the state of "dis-organization". She described the body in an extremely meticulous way, even blood and anatomies were included in her drawing. Su hoped to express her thinking on pleasure in pain by presenting her painful objects and human organs abreast. The contradiction between the painting and the hidden meaning of the drawings challenged the audiences' aesthetic standards, sense of beauty, and underlying desire.[13]

Since 2010, Su has begun adding anatomical components and fantastical instruments into her art series. The artworks were first exhibited at a solo show at Grotto Fine Art in 2011. Simple tools were the main theme of the show. The group of work was combines into a series of machine. At first, Su has started to draw a tool which was a scissor. Then, the drawings have been transformed into some complicated machines. At the end, an assembly line appeared.[12]

The idea of the assembly line was presented in a form of animation which was shown in a dark room at the exhibition. The sound of the work was trying to deliver the concept of "endless torture" and hint the audiences about one of Su's favorite films by creating a mood that was similar to David Lynch's Eraserhead.[12] In the collection, torture machines, human flesh, apparatus are organs were shown. The artworks were exhibited in topographical perspective in order to make them look like the pages in an old textbook. All drawings were in single black ink and pastel on the drafting film.[14]

One woman apartment, (2008)
lucanus hermani delisle, ink on drafting film, 60cm x 84cm

It is a failed project that was due to take place in 2008 but Su abandoned it to volunteer with an NGO.[15]

Paracelsus' Garden, (2008)

The exhibition consisted of ink drawings and embroideries. For the ink drawings, Su showed her thoughts on the human skeleton in raw anatomical renderings. Her embroideries were presented with juxtaposition and design. Su brought dreams and alchemy together to form a mysterious vision of nature and the human existence. Su combined her biological background with compositions in putting elements of alchemical and fantasy nature together. Her collection contained flowers, insects, and human figure. They aimed to present a personal response to the symbolic, iconic and figural self.[16]

Fascinations, (2005)

This exhibition was a collaborative work created by four artists, Suki Chan, Melanie Jackson, Leung Meeping and Angela Su. The artwork inquires ideas of collective memory, migration, labor, or race. The main idea of the project reflects to the definition of "fascination". All four artworks records indistinct or personal narratives through different mediums which included fabric, film, video, photography and sound to investigate a scope of human interactions or contentions.[17]

Microviolence, (2003)

In April 2003, during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, a woman dialed the major Chinese organizations in Toronto and proposed a comment to blame the local Chinese. She thought they have lived like rats and eaten like pigs, and the dirty disease was spread by them.

In order to trigger the discussion about this kind of racial discrimination, Su took the original statement made by that woman and presented each letter within the sentence as bacteria cultures. The artwork does not reveal whether it agrees with the discrimination to the Chinese or not. It provides rooms of imagination and judgement to the audiences.[18]

De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2002)

De Humani Corporis Fabrica was a series with seven books written by Andreas Vesalius. It was first published in 1543. He precisely illustrated different parts of the human body which then facilitated the development of scientific anatomy. With the same title, the exhibition proposed to explain the human body by combining the scientific expression with artistic representation. In the art show, science and visual art are combined together to produce new images about the symbolic comprehension of the body.[19]

gollark: It lies. I am not.
gollark: Perhaps. I have no idea what it would put them in orbit of.
gollark: Yes.
gollark: The tuxcorp moonbase has been found sorely lacking.
gollark: The moon, but not the base, just the moon.

References
  1. C.A. Xuan Mai Ardia (7 March 2014). "Seven Influential Women Artists From Asia Pacific". Art Radar. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  2. "Angela Su - Blindspot Gallery". Blindspot Gallery. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  3. Enid Tsui (15 December 2015). "With a clinical view, Hong Kong art show challenges how we see our bodies". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  4. "Methods of Art".
  5. "MOA Angela Su". Archived from the original on 2017-11-29. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  6. "Angela Su《The Hartford Girl and Other Stories》". GALLERY EXIT 安全口. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  7. Enid Tsui (12 January 2016). "Artist inspired by Occupy joins Sham Shui Po market fight". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  8. POSTISM (10 May 2013). "Angela Su's Wunderkammer". FRAMED. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  9. "The Hartford Girl and Other Stories". Archived from the original on 2016-04-19. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  10. "Angela Su's blog - The Hartford Girl and Other Stories".
  11. RTHK (10 December 2013). "The Works". Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  12. Edmund Lee (4 December 2013). "Arts preview: Artist Angela Su draws on the Victorian age". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  13. Asiart Archive. "Angela Su: BwO". Event occurs at 2011. Archived from the original on 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  14. Asiart Archive. "Angela Su: BwO". Event occurs at 2011. Archived from the original on 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  15. "One woman apartment=2008".
  16. "Angela Su: Paracelsus' Garden". 2008.
  17. Asiart Archive (2005). "Fascinations". Archived from the original on 2016-04-27. Retrieved 2016-04-20.
  18. Asiart Archive (2003). "MicroViolence - Installation by Angela Su". Archived from the original on 2016-04-27. Retrieved 2016-04-16.
  19. Asiart Archive (2012). "de Humani Corporis fabrica". Archived from the original on 2016-04-26. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
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