“I am amazed by the way Hong Kong is constantly growing in its geographically available space by penetrating deeper and deeper underground and higher and higher towards the sky.”
Initially inspired by the vibrant energy of technoculture and illegal warehouse parties in London, where Nemes lived for several years starting in 2017, the new Hong Kong Painting series in the exhibition underscores a distant fascination with Hong Kong’s dazzling skyline and ongoing architectural expansion. Always eager to innovate with new materials and production methods, Nemes seeks to find new ways of disintegrating and rearranging the pictorial experience as a reference to the escapist counterculture of the rave scene. In the new series, Nemes assembles five layers of steel, acrylic and mirror within the given image space. By laser-cutting, hollowing out and re-arranging the order of these layers, he constructs an interior ‘image space’ amplified by its very reflection. Through interlocking these ‘image spaces’ into a mesh-like cage, Nemes reveals a feeling of disconnect and desire to break away from urban life. As a result, the series offers viewers a visual transcendence that is flushed with life, energy and joy yet with a sense of anxiety, sorrow and decay at the same time.
