LUCID RUIN - solo exhibition by Ho Sin Tung

…at the beginning of something which, incomprehensibly, you feel and experience as if it were an ending. This unease is summed up in a particularly terrifying phrase: “Now what?”

——A Heart So White / Javier Marías

In 2020, some newlyweds were unable to return to their home countries during their honeymoon because of the pandemic, and their situation was described by the media as being “Stuck in Paradise.” Couples often choose to take their honeymoon in idealized places that are beautiful yet unreal. Such irreversible one-way street is the transitional time before two individuals enter a system, vaguely shrouded in the ominousness of some kind of doomsday, disaster impending. 

Departing from such discomfort, Ho Sin Tung, as per usual, cites texts both ancient and modern. From Homer’s Odyssey to contemporary poets Anne Carson and Lana Del Rey, these texts allow “the final moments” of an external world and personal affairs to reflect one another. They organize interconnected themes that appeared in different time and space, such as paradise, homeland, marriage, and resistance. Mankind yearns for paradise but is also fearful of eternity; endings bring regrets, but they also beget the possibility of beauty. What happened will happen again and again; it will be repeated in history as chants and songs.

In this exhibition, the artist returns to the obscurity and complexity of her own self. A diverse array of mediums ranging from painting, to installation, photography, moving image, and found objects gives figurative form to her iterative ideas. Here, Ho converses with her audience with an unsettling frankness.