Kiang Malingue is pleased to present “Meanwhile”, an exhibition of Homer Shew’s recent portraits. This is the New York-based artist’s second exhibition in Hong Kong since Backgrounds in 2021, including a number of portraits based on the same sitter years after the first portraits were made, adding a poignant temporal dimension to the artworks. Focusing on depicting Asian Americans, Shew continues to explore the social fabric and contiguous elements of the community as individuals inside it continue to grow and change.
 
Shew made a portrait for Pulitzer Prize winner Hua Hsu in 2021, whom he admires as an exceptional Asian American writer. For the current exhibition, Shew created Hua Hsu II(2023), an organic development from the previous portrait. Hsu is seen once again donning a Hawaiian shirt — a fortuitous opportunity for Shew to fully express his liking for plants and leaves — in a relaxed, sitting pose, calmly looking away from the viewer as he is engaged in a friendly conversation. In a strange and playful way, the depiction moves away from a classic Asian American portrait that emphasises racial features to a portrayal that obfuscates the racial identity of the sitter: Hsu’s skin tone darkens under the sun and the awning shade while his hair attains a dramatic jaggedness that echoes the arboreal elements in the background, eyes lit and widened with sincerity and enthusiasm. No longer frozen in a staged pose, Hsu is here naturally integrated with his surrounding environment, at once metamorphosing into and out of the New York streetscape behind. Hua Hsu II shows that the writer has not changed but has for the artist become an endearing subject who goes beyond the necessity of racial descriptions.

Opening: Sat, 28 Oct, 3 – 6 PM

Gallery address: 12/F, Blue Box Factory Building, 25 Hing Wo Street, Aberdeen