Gallery FUKAI presents pre tty boys kill me\, a solo exhibition of drawings by Roselina Hung. He r work continues to reference both public and personal histories through ne w drawings that address the subtle distinction between desire and obsession \, with soft-featured young men serving as muse.
Poster-sized drawing s of many pretty boy faces\, arranged in pattern\, present an aesthetic ide al of beauty. Each face was meticulously drawn one at a time\, only then w ere sections erased to reveal snippets from text messages sent and received during Hung’s romantic relationships. While formulaic repetition provides the drawings a mechanical tone\, their subject\, their dimensions\, and th e use of coloured-pencil are reminiscent of the lovesick teenager. A serie s of smaller portraits blend multiple faces to create monstrous amalgams – desire’s derangement of the senses. One gallery wall is covered with wallp aper Hung created that was inspired by Charles Dana Gibson’s ‘Design for Wa llpaper – Suitable for a Bachelor Apartment’ (1902). Gibson’s satirical in terpretation of romantic longing and female beauty is here replaced by an e arnest look at male beauty as the object of affection.
Process and ob ject are both important in this exhibition. At the outset\, Hung was inter ested in whether her drawing capability and the quality of the work would s uffer because of the intense repetition. The show’s ambiguous title\, pret ty boys kill me\, gestures at the project’s and Hung’s masochism. Having d rawn about 300 faces\, Hung injured her right hand and was unable to draw f or several months. To be sure\, pretty boys kill me speaks to the deleteri ous effect of obsessive desire. Love becomes an inoperable illness that ca nnot be removed without destroying the patient. The drawings touch equally \, however\, on the enabling aspect of obsession\, its ability to focus the senses and intellect in pursuit of its object.
Roselina Hung lives and works in Vancouver. She received her MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design\, London\, UK and her BFA fro m the University of British Columbia. She also spent a year abroad at L’Ec ole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts\, Paris\, France. Recent group exh ibitions include Scenes of Selves\, Occasions for Ruses\, Surrey Art Galler y\, Surrey (2012)\; FLOE: New Work\, SIM\, Reykjavik (2012)\; The Kingston Prize\, Royal Ontario Museum\, Toronto (2011). She has been an artist-in-r esidence at SIM\, Reykjavik\; The Banff Centre\, Banff\; and Ox-Bow School of Art\, Saugatuck.
Gallery FUKAI
602 East Hastings Street\, Van
couver
Hours: Sat & Sun\, 1 - 4 PM or by appointment: galleryfukai@gmail.com
For further inform ation or press enquires please contact rosy@roselinahung.com
LOCATION:Gallery Fukai GEO:49.265647;-123.060670 URL;VALUE=URI:https://ahva.ubc.ca/events/event/pretty-boys-kill-me/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ahva.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2021/05/1200.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 DTSTART:20130310T100000 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR