Holding Patterns: Kien Situ

SYDNEY

4A HAYMARKET

9 JULY – 2 AUG 2020

In a period of uncertainty and stasis, artists have demonstrated the capacity of human creativity through artistic innovation, lateral thought, and inspired action. In our current period of changes and shifts, 4A is pleased to invite you to engage with Holding Patterns, a series of four solo exhibitions on view from July to October. Curated by Con Gerakaris and Reina Takeuchi, these exhibitions highlight and support the works of Sydney-based artists Kien Situ, Crossing Threads®, Shireen Taweel and Sofiyah Ruqayah, utilising our ground-floor gallery space and windows out onto Haymarket’s streets.

View the Holding Patterns: Kien Situ roomsheet here.

View the Holding Patterns: Kien Situ wall labels here.

Listen to Kien Situ in conversation with John Choi (Founding Partner, CHROFI) here:

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art · 4A TALKS // John Choi & Kien Situ

Kien Situ (b. 1990, Sydney) is a sculpture and installation artist meditating on memory, cultural amnesia and identity in relation to the aesthetics of constructed objects and environments. Drawing upon familiar spatial, formal, textural, tectonic and material experience of his East Asian upbringing, Kien utilises and dissects his Eurocentric architectural education to create objects which reinterpret formative aesthetic and sensory experiences obfuscated by a diasporic childhood. His works are a physical melding of this experience, casting industrial gypsum cement with the regional, “artistic” material of Chinese Mò ink, a material central to the artist’s practice as part of the investigation into the symbiotic relationship between geography, place and identity.

Exhibition Documentation:

All images: Kai Wasikowski

Square of black plaster hung on a white gallery wall

Kien Situ, Shanshui (Wall Plate), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 48 x 48 x 8cm. Courtesy the artist.

Three squares of black plaster hung on a white gallery wall

Kien Situ, Shanshui (Wall Plate), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 48 x 48 x 8cm. Courtesy the artist.

A stele of black plaster with a misshapen hole gaping in its middle, looking through the a gallery glass wall

Kien Situ, Shanshui (Stele), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 128 x 64 x 32cm. Courtesy the artist.

A woman looks at a long rectangular panel of black plaster on a gallery wall, surrounded by a stele and two squares of black plaster

Holding Patterns Part One: Kien Situ (installation view) Left: Kien Situ, Shanshui (Wall Plate), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 48 x 48 x 8cm. Centre: Kien Situ, Shanshui (Scroll), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 88 x 64 x 8cm. Right: Kien Situ, Shanshui (Column), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 136 x 24 x 24cm. Courtesy the artist.

A woman crouches down to look into a crevice in a black plaster stele

Holding Patterns Part One: Kien Situ (installation view) Front, Kien Situ, Shanshui (Column), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 136 x 24 x 24cm. Back left: Kien Situ, Shanshui (Scroll), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster, 88 x 64 x 8cm. Courtesy the artist.

The front glass window looking into an art gallery, with the sign '4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art' suspended above

Holding Patterns Part One: Kien Situ (installation view). Courtesy the artist.

Return to Holding Patterns exhibition page

4A CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ASIAN ART
Ground-floor gallery

181-187 Hay St, Haymarket, Sydney

Exhibition artist: Kien Situ

Curator: Con Gerakaris

Image: Kien Situ, Shanshui (Column), 2020, Chinese Mò ink, gypsum plaster. Courtesy the artist.

What you need to know before visiting 4A

It’s important that every visitor to 4A is able to join us safely and leave healthy.

When you visit 4A for Holding Patterns, please be aware of these important visitor requirements:

Please don’t visit the 4A gallery if you feel unwell, if you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, including fever or sore throat in the last 14 days, or if you have returned from overseas or a hotspot area in the last 14 days.
Entry to 4A is limited to a maximum of eight (8) visitors at any one time.
In peak visitation periods – including the first week of exhibitions – registrations via 4A’s Eventbrite are required to confirm that we can accommodate your visit.
All visitors are required to sign in and provide details for contact tracing purposes before entering the gallery space
Inside the gallery space, please keep a social distance of at least 1.5 metres from others.
If you have not booked to attend, you might be asked to wait at a designated outside area or come back later, if necessary.
Our visiting guidelines are subject to change in line with NSW Health advice
We thank you in advance for your kind cooperation, awareness and patience.

See our current visitor information and COVIDSafe guidelines here.
Please note that there is a limit of 8 visitors to our Haymarket gallery at one time.

If you would like to secure your visit time, please make a booking here.