Objects of Desire

About

In this site-specific painted sculpture nstallation, Teh's starting point is the nearby Chinatown restaurants where food is hung on hooks to advertise their freshness. The artist employs the sausage, a traditional Chinese fast food, to draw analogies between the conspicuously suggestive form with issues of fetishism and objectification of the Asian female. On a formal level, the work invites onlookers to re-examine cultural perceptions due to social conditioning.

Teh recognizes that the sausage’s form, and the act of its consumption is loaded with innuendo and uses our visual relationship with it to address the perception of the Asian female as hypersexualized to the Western gaze. The personal story of the Asian female is largely invisible, yet physically, she is often seen as a symbol of eroticism and an object to fulfil fantasies. Much like how the hanging food in restaurant windows promises to fulfil an urge in our bellies.  

About the Artist:

Sophie Teh’s art plays with abstract and figurative themes, depicting familiar objects in unexpected ways. Her work explores how cultural conditioning and personal memories influence how we perceive and react to visual stimuli.

As part of Teh’s artistic investigation, she paints from personal experiences. Drawing from the ‘otherness’ of her Malaysian Chinese roots, Teh’s work mines this cultural tension to generate work that challenges racial and cultural stereotypes.

The artist manipulates the scale of familiar forms and assigns patterns and motifs to ignite associations and emotions in the viewer. She believes that we cognitively and perceptually mesh with painting, and that there is a mutual activation. The resulting experience pushes viewers towards an understanding of their experiences.

Teh was born in Ipoh, Malaysia and currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.