Sarah Lai 黎卓華 - Pure Heart Shopping Street 純情商店街

黎卓華

2 6 . 3

SAR AH

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L AI

7.5.2022

This kind of feeling《這種感覺》 2022 Oil on canvas 油畫布本 68.5 x 100 x 3 cm

Silky, Smooth, Sheer《絲質、順滑、貼薄》 2022 Oil on canvas, lamp 油畫布本、燈 Painting 繪畫: 61.5 x 51 x 3 cm, Lamp 燈: 20 x 20 x 11 cm Installation size variable 裝置尺寸不定

She owns the speed《她操控的速度》 2022 Single-channel video 單頻道錄像 2‘32“ Edition 版本: 5 + 2AP

Video still 截圖

Click link to view video 請按連結瀏覽作品 Password 密碼: PureHeart

Loving Heart《擁有愛情的心》 2018 Oil on canvas, telephone, acrylic phone booth 油畫布本、電話、亞加力電話亭 Painting 繪畫: 51 x 41 x 2.5 cm, Installation 裝置: 100 x 76 x 30 cm

Blue Sporty Shorts《藍色運動褲》 2022 Oil on canvas, wallpaper, acrylic lightbox, tennis balls 油畫布本、牆紙、亞加力燈箱、網球 Painting 繪畫: 92 x 123 x 3 cm, Lightbox 燈箱: 25 x 100 x 12.5 cm Installation size variable 裝置尺寸不定

New Release《新上市》 2022 Oil on canvas, barber pole 油畫布本、三色柱 Painting 繪畫: 41 x 51 x 2.5 cm, Barber pole 三色柱: 93 x 17 x 20 cm Installation size variable 裝置尺寸不定

Cassette Girl《卡式帶女孩》 2022 Oil on canvas 油畫布本 140 x 86.5 x 3 cm

Spinning Song No.1《旋轉的樂曲 No.1》 2022 Acrylic box, LED 壓克力箱、LED 60 x 95 x 15 cm

Spinning Song No.2《旋轉的樂曲 No.2》 2022 Acrylic box, LED 壓克力箱、LED 60 x 95 x 15 cm

Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Sarah Lai’s solo exhibition Pure Heart Shopping Street.

刺點畫廊榮幸呈現黎卓華的個展《純情商店街》。以日本80、90

Presenting a brand-new installation which unfolds into a collection of light boxes, videos, oil

年代的商店街道為背景，展覽中的全新裝置以繪畫、燈箱、錄像

paintings and other sourced objects, these works position themselves within a fabricated scene

及其它現成物件構成一組虛構場景。黎氏的創作關注視覺語言所

of a shopping street in 80s and 90s Japan. Interested in the emotional responses conjured from

挑起難以言喻且暖昧的感覺，她以網絡上舊日大眾媒體影像為視

visual language, Lai sources her visual references from vintage archives of mass media on the

覺素材，再現過往年代中的情感和想象。在視覺影像過於氾濫的

internet, carrying the power of sentiment and imagination for a bygone era. Against the chaotic

數碼世代，黎氏透過具象繪畫裝置創造與現實世界保持距離的一

overabundance of visual imagery in the age of digital content, Lai creates rarified moments and

個時空，並在其中重新檢視並體會影像的多重可能。她透過藝術

distanced spaces to encounter images in a new light via the possibilities of figurative painting

創作提供對現成影像的另一種閱讀方式，進而悄然改變著我們與

installations. The intervening gesture of art could ever so lightly shift and transform our relationality

世界的共處。

to the found image, and subsequently our relationality to the World.

Pure Heart Shopping Street is a continuation of the artist’s practice of the appropriation,

《純情商店街》延續黎氏對當代視覺文化的挪用、重啟與美學化。

aestheticization, and reactivation of contemporary visual culture. The artist meticulously chooses

展覽中，藝術家挑選並組合著現成影像、道具、室內設計及建築形

and orchestrates found images, facsimile, props, interior design, and architectural forms, to

態，以儘量簡約和克制的視覺元素再現某種場景印象。一如過往項

recreate the impression of a scene with minimum visual elements. This is a follow up on previous

目《Gang Killer》(首爾Mediacity雙年展，2021）、《急接近！》

projects such as the Gang Killer (Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2021), Kyusekkin! (Love SOS) (Art021,

(上海Art021，2018）及《觸到的回憶》(香港Mill6，2017），黎

Shanghai, 2018), (In)tangible Reminiscence (Mill6, Hong Kong, 2017), which sources materials and

氏亦取材自動漫、電視及平面廣告等流行文化中的視覺語言。在她

visual language from the pop culture of manga, anime, and TV and print commercials respectively.

的青少年記憶中，日本的流行及商品文化席捲亞洲經濟，這些影像

The artist holds dear to these materials as formative influences and ingrained mnemonics in her

亦是銘刻著她的成長與記憶的珍貴檔案。黎氏對這些影像中主體的

teenage years growing up in Hong Kong, as Japanese popular and material culture holds sway across

可替代性充滿意識，於是，她在創作中試圖進一步再現這些矯揉的

emerging economies in Asia. Hyper conscious of its fungible subjectivity, Lai’s project is altogether

「再現」，並抽象化這些不真實的「抽象」。

a representation of deliberate representations, an abstraction of untruthful abstractions.

Lai’s exhibition greets with a series of stimuli and selective visual signs. A pink telephone booth

展覽中，一系列動態的視覺刺激與精選的影像成為空間的主角：

brings us to a setting predating portable mobile phones, whilst a video of women fiddling with

一個粉色電話亭將我們帶回移動通訊出現之前的年代；一個顯像

electronic products loop on a grainy CRT television below a store canopy. Lamps from the 90s dot

管電視立於商店的遮陽棚下，循環播放著女性操控電子產品。空

the space alongside illuminated large-scale spinning cassette tapes on the wall of a video store,

間中，富年代感的燈映出光束，另一邊古樸的商店門廊旁，一個

next to a backdrop of quaint storefronts. A light box at eye level reads as a street name sign — “Pure

被燈光點亮的大型磁帶旋轉著。眼前一盞燈箱顯示著街名以及我

Heart Shopping Street”, pinpointing our whereabouts. Full of considered elements that vie for our

們的所在：「純情商店街」。街道上各式各樣的物件，渴望著我

attention, Pure Heart Shopping Street equally restrains from offering excess information. Longing

們的注視，但同時也避免提供過多的訊息。作為觀察者的我們對

to be seduced with contingency and surprises, we ourselves as observers craft an embodied

新奇與偶然帶來期待和渴望，潛意識地打造一個公共娛樂與個人

experience that straddles between public entertainment and personal delight.

情感之間的暖昧空間。

Gracing the gallery walls and the built elements of Pure Heart Shopping Street are Lai’s painted

畫廊墻面及《純情商店街》的「店面」上亦呈現著黎氏以照相

photorealistic depictions of found imagery rendered in a deliberately cropped close-up. Blue

現實主義手法對現成影像局部的近景描畫。《藍色的運動褲》

Sporty Shorts (2022) depicts a woman in blue shorts riding a bicycle saddle, her athletic thighs

（2022）中，一個身著藍色短褲的女性騎在單車上，健美的大

and round buttocks dominating the picture frame. Another painting renders curled toes underneath

腿和臀部佔據了整幅畫面。另一幅繪畫中，肉色絲襪下的腳趾踡

nude stockings, whilst farther ahead we spot a shy face being shielded from view with a cassette

縮著；遠處，手拿著磁帶盒的女生露出羞怯的眼神。黎氏擅長描

box. Lai excels in executing pure, pale-palette images that are modest and risqué, exuding palpable

繪純潔、淡雅的影像，它們兼具樸素與誘惑，流露著可察覺到的

sensitivity as they reveal the in-betweenness of a female body straddling coy adulthood and naive

曖昧性，令女主角在純情與羞怯之間展現脆弱的親密感。在資本

adolescence. The painter taps into the obsessive desire to idealize and sexualize the woman’s body,

主義剝削與趨利的邏輯下，當代影像文化對女性身體的理想化與

mobilized by a relentless image culture to exploit and profiteer.

慾望化亦被藝術家捕捉於畫布之上。

Lai’s shopping street harks back to the Parisian arcades from the 1840s, the genesis of modern

黎氏的商店街令人想起瓦爾特·本雅明在《拱廊計劃》

bourgeois visuality luminously elaborated in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project (1927-1940).

(1927-1940）中所描述的象征著現代布爾喬亞視覺經驗的1840年

Lai brilliantly turns the figure of the Baudelairean flâneur, the leisurely young man who saunters

代巴黎拱廊。在黎氏的繪畫中，本雅明筆下在城市空間內漫步、尋

in the city in search of desire and pleasure, into the nuanced feminine protagonists frequenting

找慾望與愉悅的波德萊爾式「遊蕩者」被轉化為光顧「純情商店

the Pure Heart Shopping Street. They are reflexive about the ire of consumer culture, critical of

街」的女性主角，她們對消費文化以及女性慾望化的身份帶有輕微

the sexualizing identification of womanhood, yet not too cynical to partake in the seduction of

的懷疑和不安，卻不至於憤世嫉俗，且不慍不火地參與著挑逗的圖

images and representations, their own or others’. The artist’s alienation and fetishization of cutely

像再現。黎氏對這些可愛且過時的影像的癡迷與異化正如羅蘭·巴

anachronistic signifiers are aptly analogized in Roland Barthes’ The Empire of Signs (1970), where

特在《符號帝國》(1970）中的嘗試：在三度拜訪東京之後，這位

the French semiotician, after three visits to Tokyo, attempts to “‘entertain’ the idea of an unheard-of

法國符號學家思忖如何可以在迴避「凝視東方文化精髓」的同時，

symbolic system” without “lovingly gazing toward an Oriental essence.” Like the close up of Lai’s

「想象一個聞所未聞的符號系統」。在《這種感覺》(2022）中，

sheer underwear painting This kind of feeling (2022), overlayed by Japanese hiragana and kanji

黎氏近距離地描繪了一條薄透的內褲，畫面上覆有日文的平假名與

text, of which Lai is illiterate, the artist boldly utilizes these empty signifiers in the Barthesian. It

漢字。對於不諳日文的藝術家來說，對空洞符號的大膽使用充滿了

is exactly this emptiness and meaninglessness, for both Barthes and Lai, which regenerate the

巴特的哲思意味。畢竟，在重新檢視視覺文化時，正是「空洞」與

possibility of sheer jouissance and wonder in encountering a visual culture anew.

「無意義」催生著純然的喜悅與想像。

About Sarah Lai

Sarah Lai obtained her BA in Fine Arts in 2007, and MFA in 2018, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lai’s paintings depict

(b.1983, Hong Kong)

objects from daily lives, represented by her signature pale palette and a particular stillness imbued with material memories. In her most recent practice, Lai uses as inspiration images from films, TV and advertisement of the 1980s-90s, capturing the aesthetics of sensuality presented by the media of a bygone era, and articulating a delicate subtlety in personal experiences and memories.

Lai has held solo exhibitions that include “Kyuusekkin! (Love SOS)” (ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, Shanghai, China, 2018); “Let the night breeze send away yesterday’s dreams” (Surplus Space, Wuhan, China, 2017) and “In Stasis” (Para Site, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2015). She has participated in group exhibitions such as “One Escape at a Time” (11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2021); “Crush” (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2018); “(In)tangible Reminiscence” (Center for Heritage Arts & Textiles, Hong Kong, 2018); “Against the Light: Sampling in Two Cities” (Frank F. Yang Art and Education Foundation, Shenzhen, China, 2017); “From Ocean to Horizon” (Center for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, UK, 2017); “Inception” at the 5th Art Sanya (Sanya, China, 2016); and “The 2nd CAFAM Future Exhibition” (CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2015).

Lai currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

關於黎卓華

黎卓華於2007年獲得香港中文大學藝術系學士學位，並於2018年獲得香港中文大學藝術系碩士。黎的繪畫多以日常生活的事物

(1983年，生於香港)

為主題。她的繪畫用色平淡、低反差，滲透著一份來自物質記憶的靜止感。她近期的創作以80至90年代的電影、電視和廣告美 學為靈感，以捕捉那個年代媒體影像的美學和當中的細膩感，藉此表達出一種隱約微妙的個人感知經驗。

黎卓華曾參與的個人展覽包括上海當代藝術博覽會的“急接近！” (2018)、武漢剩餘空間 “讓晚風送走昨日的夢” (2017)、還有 香港巴塞爾香港藝術展Para Site的“停滯之中”(2015)。她曾參與過的聯展包括第11屆首爾媒體城市雙年展的 “一次逃脫”(2021) 、香港六廠紡織文化藝術館的“觸到的回憶”(2018)、深圳楊鋒藝術與教育基金會的“逆光：雙城取樣”(2017)、英國曼徹斯特中國 當代藝術中心的“From Ocean to Horizon”(2017)、第五屆三亞藝術季的“不隅之見”(2016)及北京中央美術學院美術館的“第二屆 CAFAM未來展”(2015)。

黎卓華現於香港居住和工作。

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