Amelia Johnson Contemporary Oct 28 to Nov 27
South Korean artist Lee Sang-hyun's photographic and video montages are full of opposites: past and present, East and West, rational and irrational, male and female, nature and industrialisation. They also reflect the many dilemmas his country - and the artist - have faced in the past.
'The Korean modernisation process has been extremely rapid, even violent in some aspects, taking the country from the third to the first world in just one generation,' says independent curator Cristina Recupero.
'There's been foreign occupation and wars, and a collapse of traditional culture under the impact of [Westernisation]. Lee's videos and photographs seem to personify this.'
His latest exhibition (including Tears of Fallen Blossoms, above) at Amelia Johnson Contemporary gallery - his first solo show in Hong Kong - continues to explore the social and political tensions created by these dichotomies through colours and humour.
'Humour and satire are essential to Lee's projects and are manifested through his own persona, in what could be interpreted as self-mockery,' says Recupero.
'Like Alfred Hitchcock, Lee makes appearances in his works. Wearing a black suit and sunglasses, he can pop up as a miniature in a corner of a video or photograph, be found fishing or flying around his pictures with butterfly wings.'