An Gee | Go On Without Me

About

An Gee Chan makes painterly mono screenprints, ceramics, public hoardings and murals that play with social awkwardness, confusions of language, private anxiety. Her work tells stories; exuberant, humorous, brimming over with comic vignettes – yet there is a more sinister undertow – disturbing cameos glimpsed on city streets and in domestic interiors.

Go On Without Me represents a shift in the artist’s work; “…close friends and family members being ill. The faces and figures reflect my fear and the fearful faces I saw. ‘Get well soon!’ is always the line to say when knowing someone is sick, but I think ­– get well soon but how? and where? which stage do we wish things to get back to? Can things ever get back to where they were?”

This sense of sombre unease and questioning permeates the new works. They are of heads and faces in extreme close-up, muzzy, as if behind a cloud – obscured by fear and anxiety. There is a psychological intensity, representation merging almost into abstraction, hinting at powerful forces at work; “The claustrophobia of living back in Hong Kong and the political crackdown must in some part fuel the uncertainty, rage and sense of imprisonment conjured in these powerful and bold images.” (Cherry Smyth)

Go On Without Me coincides with the publication of the book An Gee. An Gee, published by mccm creations, with texts by Gaylord Chan, Adam Dant, Cherry Smyth, Jo Stockham, and Blues Wong