작품 상세

The eclectic works of Chan Kok Hooi feature whimsical stories, creating images that are fascinating yet filled with remarkable detail. Ancient Egyptians had carved stories onto their walls, but in the modern times, most of our stories are transmitted through another 'wall' - screens on mobile devices. Kok Hooi's use of modern-day symbols and emojis from social media draws parallels to the semantic symbols of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. He demonstrates this by reproducing the emojis, tactfully incorporating the aesthetic of the hieroglyph. Within the landscape of symbols, the image of a figure cosplaying as a Sailor Soldier from the anime Sailor Moon bursts forth, internalised into a striking image. In this work, the artist emulates a particular shade of blue known as Egyptian Blue, the oldest artificial pigment used in ancient Egypt and employed lines of varying thickness to outline the images and hieroglyphs. The revered curator Syed Nabil (2010) wrote: "His works abound with a disorientating array of imagery, symbols and junctions that reveal networks of fragmented and dislocated stories intended as translations of universal concerns of the human condition." Kok Hooi won the Mayor of Beppu Prize in the Beppu Art Biennale in Oita, Japan, in 2005 and was a winner of the Malaysian award of the Asean Art Award in 2003. He also won a prize in the Taichung Print and Drawing Biennial in Taiwan in 2006. He was a finalist of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong) from 2007 to 2009, and the Louis Vuitton Art Prize (Hong Kong) in 2007. He won the Juror's Award in the Young Contemporary Artists (Bakat Muda Sezaman) competition in 2006-2007 and was placed among the Top 3 (2D category) in the 2004 competition. He was awarded a Royal Overseas League scholarship for residency in Arbroath, Scotland, in 2009. His other residencies were at Galeri Petronas (2008), ABN Amro Malihom (2007 and 2008), Gwangju (2012), Red Gate Gallery, Beijing (2009), and Vermont Studio Centre in the United States in 2007. His solos were Imitating (Red Mill Gallery, Vermont Studio Centre, USA, 2007); Photo Store (Feijacun Village, under Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, in 2008); I See(k) You: Recent Works (Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, 2010); You Are Carnivores (Pierogi Gallery, New York, 2010); and Sell Out (Art Seasons Gallery, Singapore, 2012).