Nicole Wong & Amal Lin

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Rossi & Rossi is pleased to announce a double-feature-style exhibition: Cotton in the Ears, Furball in the Throat by Nicole Wong and Journey by Amal Lin. The presentations are on view at Rossi & Rossi Hong Kong from 4 February to 10 March 2023.

Cotton in the Ears, Furball in the Throat by Nicole Wong

Cotton in the Ears, Furball in the Throat is Hong Kong artist Nicole Wong’s (b. 1990) third solo exhibition with Rossi & Rossi. Working beyond a single medium, Wong’s practice investigates the tenuous connections between words, objects, and image, inviting introspective reflection through the exploration of ideas such as failure, hope, and miscommunication. Central to the theme of this exhibition this time is both a yearning for comfort – a sentiment that many of us experienced  throughout the pandemic – and the feeling of uneasiness about being inches away from it.

On view is a new series of lenticular prints titled But What Happens When Skin Falls? (2021). In each work, the artist overlaps images of handwashing with images of hand-created shadow puppets. For Wong, having to keep hands clean during the pandemic became a recurring motif, and these repeated motion is as if an ombromanie ritual one performs before any form of physical engagement. While the title of the series points to a potential gruesome end from all the handwashing, it can also be seen as a senseless question asked by an impatient child. Through this arrangement, Wong alludes to the psychological regression that human beings experience during a time of crisis.

Also on view is The Institution of International Blue (2017). The work consists of nine poems, each typed on a single sheet of paper and pinned neatly on a blue bulletin board. In researching different forms of language, Wong discovered that, despite having a much limited vocabulary, the accuracy and exactitude of sign language is on par with spoken language. To explore this gap between forms of language, the artist interprets and translates the nuance of gestures into poems by using the hand signs of the colour blue from different countries as the starting visual prompt. Seen together in a single bulletin, each poem and hand-sign pair points to the impossibilities of language and the relationship between a sign and its meaning.

Journey by Amal Lin

Journey is Taiwanese artist Amal Lin’s (b. 1992) debut solo exhibition. Lin studied watercolour and oil painting at a young age, and her interest in Middle Eastern art started when she was exposed to the Arabic language and calligraphy as an undergraduate student at the University of Jordan. This fascination quickly turned into a passion as Lin enrolled in the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London to further her practice. Her paintings therefore draw heavily from the Persian miniature tradition, depicting the artist’s inner spiritual reality with extreme detail.

Persian miniatures, which are small, Persian-style paintings done on paper, are often seen used as illustrations or intended to be kept in an album called a muraqqa. Characterised by their vibrant colours due to the heavy use of mineral-based pigments, miniatures became a significant genre in Persian art around the thirteenth century. Their small size means that their owners can store them easily and choose who else can see them. This aspect of the works resulted in an intimate and personal viewing experience, as opposed to looking at wall paintings, the other dominating art form of the time.

The paintings in Journey are based on Lin’s own journey of recovery from a severe eating disorder. For the artist, the process of producing Persian miniatures demands absolute concentration: from grinding her own mineral pigments to burnishing shell gold details painted on hand-dyed paper, the repetitive movements required at each stage of the painting process is akin to meditation. In the process, Lin allows herself and her ego to dissolve and reveal what she sees in her inner reality.