Stacey CHAN Lok Heng: Placebo

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Gallery EXIT presents “Placebo”, the first solo exhibition by Stacey Chan Lok Heng.

In this exhibition, Chan continues to delve into the material of pharmaceuticals, conferring on it a new form and imagination, so as to explore the meanings and associations of medical cure in terms of individual psychology, beliefs and social customs. The works deconstruct the physical manifestation and inherent symbolism of western pharmaceuticals as a kind of everyday object, reflect on the relationship between contemporary art, medical cure and religion as a commercial item.

“Placebo” is Latin for “I shall be pleasing.” In western medical treatment, placebo is adopted as a substitute for medicine and an alternative therapy. While placebo is “any sham medication or procedure designed to be void of any known therapeutic value”, the patients, believing in the therapeutic value of the placebo, psychologically perceive the relief and even cure of the illness. In this exhibition, “placebo” refers to the audience’s expectations of the art exhibition and the artworks. From where she sees it, when the audiences encounter art, they often expect to be “healed” or “redeemed” spiritually, and the artist is often deified.

In the past when Western science had not yet become popular, medicine, religion, and art were regarded as one and the same. In Role Playing A Doctor, Chan takes inspiration from the Chinese doctor’s handwritten prescription and creates a series of abstract paintings that resemble scribblings. If Western medicine represented scientific rationality, then handwritten prescriptions are like hand-drawn runes in religious rituals, endowed with a sacred and mysterious power, for those who believe in their healing power shall be healed.

Since 2017, Chan has been creating conceptual works that involve the use of pharmaceuticals such as repairing cracks in an empty room with powdered antidepressants, and sculptures in the form of Buddha statue casted by Prozac. Here in this exhibition, the artist applies for the first time this material as a colour pigment in her paintings.