Flèche

Duo Exhibition of Korean Artist LEE Eunsae and Hong Kong Artist Michele CHU 

Presented by the Korean Cultural Center and Property Holdings Development Group

The Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong and Property Holdings Development Group jointly present “Flèche”, which exhibits 10 new artworks of Korean Artist LEE Eunsae and Hong Kong Artist Michele CHU from 25 August to 24 September 2022.

"Flèche” means “arrow” in French, but when spoken, evokes skin. How can a site of piercing—of trauma—also reveal the self? In a new exhibition jointly presented by Property Holdings Development Group and Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong, two artists investigate somatic experience and porousness, creating space for what our flesh remembers, reveals, and holds on the surface.

Michele CHU, a performance and multimedia artist from Hong Kong, presents cyanotypes created over the last few months while caring for her mother. In previous textile works, CHU explored the autobiographical by using her own body as an imprinting model, mining cycles connected to time—her menstrual cycles, sleep—as performative rituals. For these new works, CHU again uses her own body, but the silhouette is blurred by allusions to a second body: that of her ailing mother. Produced over a prolonged period of time, each work reveals fragmented shapes in stream-like indigos and whites, as if chronicling the relationship our bodies share to the materials, memories, and experiences that surround them.

In her paintings, Korean artist LEE Eunsae expands tensions between viewer, work, and artist. Interpreted as social commentaries on the modern condition—in particular Asia’s fraught history with media consumption, collective violence, and feminism—her previous works presented ghostly shapes and urban scenes. In this new series, LEE pivots toward abstract gesture by recalling her experiences using hair removal cream. Sticky and pungent, the cool mass of cream and tangled hair is revealed on the canvas, as well as the abject actions of smearing, wiping, and cleaning. Embodied in these painterly strokes is LEE’s own wrestling with the vanities of feminine normativity, slippery and conflicted—a story that unfolds across the surface of our skin.

Inspired by the poetry book of the same name by Hong Kong poet Mary Jean CHAN, these autobiographical works burrow into and around the flesh, refuting orderly definitions of the body and self.

Lee Eunsae 李恩實,
Acid Pink & Limp Black: Left Side,
Acrylic and oil on canvas,
72.7×91cm, 2022

Lee Eunsae 李恩實,
Acid Pink & Limp Black: Pillar 2,
Acrylic and oil on canvas,
72.7×91cm, 2022

Michele Chu 朱凱婷,
Body as Lifeguard Tower I,
Toned cyanotype on cotton,
107×182cm, 2022

Michele Chu 朱凱婷,
Hot Tears, Shivering Skin III,
Toned cyanotype on cotton, 182×107cm, 2022