Owen Leong
Owen Leong is a contemporary artist working with sculpture, photography, video and performance. He uses personal mythologies to explore systems of power, culture and representation. His artworks employ forces of creation and destruction to investigate the cyclical nature of order and chaos, and to reflect more universal aspects of human nature.
Leong’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia and internationally including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre; Monash Gallery of Art; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; Singapore Art Museum; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen; and the National Museum of Poznan, Poland.
In 2017, Leong was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize, Australia's richest prize for young contemporary artists working in any medium. In 2016 Leong was a recipient of the MAMA National Photography Prize and in 2015, he won the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. Leong has received numerous awards and grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and Asialink. He has held artist residencies at Artspace, Sydney; Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art, Manchester; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan; Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai; and Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong.
His work is held in the public collections of the Australia Council for the Arts, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Gold Coast City Gallery, Murray Art Museum Albury, Newcastle Art Gallery, University of Salford Art Collection UK, and private collections in Australia and internationally.
Artworks
Courtesy of the artist and Artereal Gallery, Sydney
- Chi (from the series Birthmark)
2010
Archival pigment print on cotton paper
70 x 70 cm (framed)
Guardian Head 氣 (Qi)
2018
Gypsum, selenite crystal, clear quartz crystal points, steel
49 x 20 x 23 cm (head), 110 cm high x 30 cm diameter (stand)
Guardian Head 精 (Jing)
2018
Gypsum, bronze, rose quartz crystal points, steel
36 x 20 x 28 cm (head), 110 cm high x 30 cm diameter (stand)
Jac (from the series Birthmark)
2010
Archival pigment print on cotton paper
70 x 70 cm (framed)
Edition 1 of 5
Collection of Willoughby City Council
Metabolic Composition 1
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
17 x 11 x 15 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
Raina (from the series Birthmark)
2010
Archival pigment print on cotton paper
70 x 70 cm (framed)
Sam (from the series Birthmark)
2010
Archival pigment print on cotton paper
70 x 70 cm (framed)
BIRTHMARK
Birthmark depicts Asian-Australian shapeshifters who are transformed with their dark animal eyes and shimmering faces. Each individual proudly bears the markings of a native Australian moth on their face. Like an indelible tattoo, these patterns emerge from within and erupt on the surface of the hybrid body. These birthmarks burn brightly on some and smoulder with darkness on others, colouring the skin with striking patterns of native Australian moth wings.
Fluid identities, androgyny and ambiguity manifest the latent power of transformation in all human bodies. In this series, some individuals also bear physical wounds and scratches. Wounds are in constant state of transformation, as a site of injury or healing, or sometimes both at the same time. Leong’s work evolves from the premise that identities are fluid and constantly changing and uses the body and skin as a surface across which social and cultural forces are displayed and transmitted.
GUARDIAN HEADS
Guardian Heads is a series of three sculptures cast from the artist’s own head. Inverted upside-down, from one head emerges a crystalline spine of white selenite crystal. The other heads have clusters of rose quartz crystal growing from upturned necks, while bronze cast lingzhi mushrooms grow from the face and neck. By turning the heads upside-down, the artist is inverting culture that is imprinted on the body and mind. It is a way of looking within oneself to find a new perspective. These are contemplative, totemic and watchful guardian figures.
These sculptures explore selfhood through cycles of regeneration and decay. Leong uses personal mythologies to describe creation and obliteration of the self through artistic processes of casting, destroying, assembling and recasting. These sculptures show the body as landscape: human faces merge with mountain forms, while crystals and mushrooms grow from heads, arms and hands. Through a contrasting language of man-made and natural materials – concrete, bronze, steel, marble dust, quartz crystal, beeswax – these works symbolise the journey towards original nature, to experience a deeper awareness within everyday consciousness.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field (amygdala) visualises the energy meridians of the body as armour. It is named after an organ located deep within the human brain, which is responsible for emotional learning and emotional memory. This sculpture is a life cast of the artist’s own body, which is encased in a golden armature. This metallic exoskeleton is inspired by the ritual coordinates of acupuncture meridians, and is a structure that maps the force field of healing energy.
This sculpture is from a body of work informed by Chinese philosophy, medicine and healing. These pieces incorporate crystals and plants for their healing and protective properties and Buddhist mudras invoking ritual gestures of the body.
