Beams of artificial fluorescent light, pixelated images of gray-scale sunrises, assembled screens of ad hoc roadside footage – these are but some of the elements in Ko Sin Tung’s visual dialogue with underground zones of construction; those hidden major developments that are hinted at above earth yet not revealed till upon completion. Edouard Malingue Gallery is pleased to present the first major solo exhibition of Ko Sin Tung (b. 1987), an emerging Hong Kong artist and graduate from the Department of Fine Arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, who is concerned with the private states of living and investigates, through a myriad of mediums and materials, the psychological influences objects as well as environments project, and the idiosyncratic functions they are channeled to fulfill from the domestic to the urban.

For ‘underground construction: failed’ Ko Sin Tung develops from her consideration of domestic spaces to seemingly more public quarters – the future high-speed railway connecting Hong Kong to Mainland China near West Kowloon – and investigates, on a personal level, the reverberations of this concrete issue, dissecting its consequent yet currently secretive impact on social relations. At the entrance to the gallery the visitor encounters an archway; as if entering a domestic lair, the outline of an ordinary plastic carpet lies on the floor in front of the entrance – the remnant of the semi-circular shape of commonplace doormats. On the side wall hangs a small image of the Austin construction zone, covered in undulated shards of blue plastic – at once a hint of the exhibition beyond the gateway and a welcome sign, the curved shape echoing that of a rainbow and alluding to the hopes as well as aspirations of the infrastructural development.

Ko Sin Tung is a highly promising, emerging Hong Kong artist. She has previously been exhibited at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Art Museum, Beijing, 8th Vladivostok Biennale of Visual Arts, Vladivostok, Para Site, Hong Kong, and the Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, amongst other locations. In 2012 she completed a residency at the Kunstnerhuset Messen, Ålvik, Norway and has been awarded multiple awards: Chu’s Creative Award (2009), Cheung’s Fine Arts Award (2009) and Professor Mayching Kao Fine Arts Fund (2012). Most recently she received two prestigious grants, one Project Grant (Emerging Artists Scheme) from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2014) and the Pure Art Foundation Grant 2013-2014 from the Pure Art Foundation, Hong Kong. Ko Sin Tung lives and works in Hong Kong.