GAYLE CHONG KWAN – KEW / PAMPLEMOUSSE
2020-04-20Gayle Chong Kwan’s photographic series Kew/Pamplemousse, centers on natural elements from the botanical gardens, the concepts of exploration and hierarchies merge, giving birth to very colorful, yet transparent, reflective, and partially blurred, images.
Overlapping forms, lights and synesthetic sensations from two different geographical and cultural realities, Gayle Chong Kwan invites us to a timeless journey where distance is omitted, a topic that seems of particular interest in this time of isolation.
In this series, started in 2001, the artist combines two aspects of the ‘botanical Empire’ in doubleexposed analog photographic prints that connect the botanical gardens of Kew in the UK and Pamplemousse in Mauritius, which was once one of its colonies.
Botanical gardens played an important role in the political economy of the British Empire, with Kew Gardens holding a central role as receptor of seeds, cuttings and dried flowers from the colonies. Moreover, botanical gardens were established in Europe to cultivate the specimens that were brought back from explorations, with a view to marketable profit.
Opposite – Kew/Pamplemousse 2, 2001
Exhibition runs through to April 30th, 2020
Obscura Gallery
1405 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, NM 87505
