How much can an Asian male bare? Not quite enough for Norm

Like many great discoveries, some of the photographs in Norm Yip's forthcoming exhibition Skin Deep came about by accident.

Sitting in his Sheung Wan office-cum-studio-cum-home, the Saskatchewan-native says that when he was cleaning blemishes off some nude male shots, he found that by playing with the features of his digital photography software he was able to add a grainy and pixelated surface. In doing so, he created a texture that adds depth to the shots and is further accentuated by their large-scale, light-box presentation.

He indicates the texture in one of the charcoal prints that hangs on his studio wall, and says that people have sat and stared at it for hours. It's this kind of captivation that he's trying to recreate with his photographs.

'I want people to question whether we can see beyond beauty,' says the 43-year-old former architect, who includes wedding photographer and artist on his CV. 'I want to enhance that quality, but go deeper into the image and engage the viewer. Large-scale work has been done many times before, but big is captivating and it draws people closer. If you look, the surface is like little islands on the skin - another world. The outcome is a geographic map of the body in a colourful way.'

Those familiar with Yip's artistic photography will know that black-and-white images of well-toned, young Asian males are his stock-in-trade in his quest to show a wider audience what he sees as the reality behind Asian beauty. A visit to his website's guestbook proves he's not the only one (male or female) with that view, as does the success of his book The Asian Male - 1.AM.

For this latest exhibition, which opened yesterday, Yip has branched out with some abstract shots - a new departure. Of the dozen or so shots, at least half are manipulated images of males shot against a black background and with heavy use of shadow. The results are a series of disembodied torsos, many mimicking the poses of classic Renaissance sculptures, but with a hue and texture that take the viewer beyond titillation.

This foray into abstraction and manipulation may go some way to answering the question in the press release for Skin Deep - 'Could there be more than meets the eye?' - in the affirmative. But the response from the other half dozen pictures is a resounding: no'. The black-and-white studies of models from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong suggest that Yip still isn't ready to let go of his roots.