21 March – 20 June 2005
Alternating between the real and tangible and the temporary and elusive, Pamela So makes photographic works, using and combining natural materials with digital manipulation. She uses historical art references ranging from Renaissance painting to contemporary film, appropriating their luxuriant colour and ornate forms, changing them into new works with added and altered meanings, at the same time, retaining the familiarity of the original.
Embedded within these works of seductive surface beauty, are layers of meaning, which come from the artists concern with personal identity and Western art history. Recently she has turned her focus to English historical wallpapers, manipulating and changing the flowers, fruits and animals, with real or altered substitutes, suggesting the idea of genetic tampering as well as an inter-cultural reading. During her residency, she intends to explore this idea further by filling walls, floor and ceiling of the project space with new patterns which will be a combination of the virtual and the real.
