According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ‘set’ has some 430 definitions – until relatively recently, more than any other word in the book – and they have constantly evolved depending on the context. Hong Kong artist Nicole Wong (b. 1990) delves into the potential for such transformations in Once It Sets, her fourth solo exhibition opening at Rossi & Rossi Hong Kong on 7 December. Fixating on natural and artificial crystalline solids, the artist amplifies or repeats processes of material transformation, thus delineating structural changes during these critical states and illuminating the energy that erupts from them.

Amongst the seven works on view in the presentation, The Definition of Rain (2024) translates the dictionary entry of ‘rain’ into binary code. Opal and glass beads, representing 1s and 0s of the coding language, are strung together into a suncatcher curtain that bisects the gallery space. When visitors pass through it, the code represented by the mineral stones becomes distorted as the swaying movement of the curtain disrupts its sequence and the meaning it embodies. Wong thus draws a parallel between the phenomenon of rain and the construction of meaning. Just as rain is made up of water droplets condensed from atmospheric water vapour, language and its meanings are crystallised through a specific sequence of symbols.

Gallery address: 11F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road