Unseen Flow is a new exhibition from Chinese artist Carla Chan where she works across a broad range of mediums to explore places both earthly and other-worldly. Throughout, she blurs the boundaries between reality and illusion, between figurative and abstraction, as the gallery space is converted into three distinct movements, which see the artist take the viewer on an exploratory voyage with her varied use of sound, light, gesture, texture and data.
Chan uses both the physical and digital to create her striking pieces, in one series starting with still images of vast mountain ranges captured in darkness. When the eyes, the organic, fail to see, the digital camera captures the hidden framework of the nocturnal landscape. The artist then balletically pours natural elements such as iron or carbon across the images before dynamically shaking the residue free. The resultant works at once capture the energy of the process of creation and the stillness of the landscape: The grainy memory of the expanse.
The exhibition features a central installation, where, across two large video works, viewers are engaged in a spatial drama: An evocative sensorial unfolding of a more virtual landscape. The multi-layered immersive video work is created by a set of noise-generation algorithms, simulating organic formations and patterns found in nature. These biotic visual crystals naturalise the digital imagery and the virtual landscape which they create.
The work springs from my long obsession and fascination with natural transformations, particularly formless shapes and their movement. The transformative power of natural substances such as water, rock, air and clouds produce infinite varying forms that seem both ordered and random at the same time..
About the Artist
Carla Chan was born in 1989, Chan lives and works in Berlin and Hong Kong. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree from the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She works with a variety of media including video, installation, photography and interactive media. Much like the never-ending development of new technology Chan considers media art as a medium with infinite possibilities for artistic expression.
Minimal in style and form, her recent work focuses on ambiguity in nature. Bridging natural transformation and unpredictable computer algorithms, her work is consolidated with a cohesive dynamic between form, means and content. Concurrent with her exhibition at Galloire in Dubai, Chan’s “Fading Space of Dawn” will be presented at the Tai Kwun Centre during Art Basel, Hong Kong. Also in 2022, a selection of works from her Clouded White series, have been acquired by the M+ Museum in Hong Kong.
Chan completed the prestigious art residency with La Prairie Art, Monte Rosa Hut, Zermatt, Switzerland and her subsequent work has been featured at Freize and Art Basel fairs. She was awarded the prestigious TOY BERLIN MASTERS AWARD 2017, and won the Young Artist Award at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, 2018. Recent exhibitions include: “To the end for the beginning”, the heaviness of my heart, Goethe-Institut, Hong Kong (2020), “Faded Black, Singapore Art week”, Arndt Art Agency, Straits Clan, Singapore (2019), and “To Another side of the Moon”, Lobe Block, Berlin, Germany (2018).
About Galloire
Galloire is a leading contemporary gallery working with established and emerging artists from around the world who, regardless of medium, push boundaries of culture, thought and explore our digitally-dominant society.
With eclectic range, we exhibit artists whose roots stem from urban art to classically-trained painting, from the world viewed through the lens to the data that surrounds us. The gallery is also characterised by a strong interest in how visual arts work in conjunction with other forms such as poetry, philosophy and science.
