I would like to conceal the face and let it disappear into the “red”. The red not only is the tangible colour red, but also the metaphor for Chinese institutional ideology. It is also the red which westerners project their what in their mind learning from the media on China especially China government every day. Living in London, sometimes I feel the western media took a very prejudiced approach in reporting everything about China, everything in red. Whenever there is a portrait, the issue identity get present. Face no doubt is the surface of the identity. I deliberately conceal the face to raise questions. Who are they? What do they look like? Why do they pose like that facing the red? I can’t tell how they look, so difficult to know their identity. The composition is the identity photography used in passport and other institutional archives. We can see their clothes, with traces and information of the social-cultural and personal background. Then the rest of space, leaves the viewer to engage and think. For a westerner, do I bother what they look, how they live, even if they produce products for me? For a Chinese, we all live in this super governed society, I am too, faceless in front of the red like the sitter. There could be very political readings, especially how personal identity disappearing in the government apparatus. Related issues including human rights, working conditions, institutional norm and gaze, surveillance, power....
Verbal explanation is always limit the engagement. I am afraid that my above thoughts limit my further engagement and it would be rather over simplification to explain my works in this way especially to viewers. I would like to listen to others how they feel about my works. As always, I would like to create a signifier clicking open a vast space with great potential to engage with the viewers, an ambiguous signifier...
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