In the exhibition 10 Years Ago, A Woman With Lipstick Like This Kissed My Glass, And Now, We Are Doing The Same Act, Amy Tong creates work that explores the awkwardness within communications - sometimes passive, sometimes assertive. The environment portrays a sense of helplessness in these situations. Through employing delicate or volatile materials and malfunctioned objects, the artist constructs five surreal yet evocative installations in a setting of an apartment, whilst fostering a dreamy atmosphere that takes the viewers to escape into a mellow embracement.
In her artistic practice, Tong always shows her own way of emotion-focused coping - ingesting, altering, softening and romanticising struggles in real life by means of innocent yet acute interpretation.
Paper, as the centrepiece of the exhibition, is a paper sculpture in the shape of a chair with paper knives extruding from the seat. The forms suggest an idea of torment yet the materials propose otherwise. The heart-shaped cut-out on the back of the chair alludes sugar-coated manipulations creating a feeling of vulnerable souls brooding over complex interactions which - in many ways - could have been simpler.
Sugar, in a similarly ravishing approach, features love letters composed by the artist, between two fictional characters with reference to Romeo and his crush, Rosaline. Romeo confessed his feelings to Rosaline, but she rejected his love. Coated in gelatine, the letters with handwritten poetry borrowed the story between Artemis and Orion from Greek mythology to show an interaction between a rejection of love and the bitterness within the relationship.
Gallery address: Room 13, 23 Floor, Khora, 128 Bedford Road, Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon