Texts for Soh Souen's Solo Exhibition

In this exhibition, Soh will present a new series of portraits, expanding on the “tie” series of portraits he has created in the past.

The “tie” series is a series of portraits on large canvases with pixelated color surfaces depicting proof photographs of close friends. The certificate photo, which requires the viewer to maintain a neutral expression so as not to express any particular emotion, is used to manage the individual in a social space. By adopting certificate photographs as a motif, issues such as the management of individuals in modern society, or the relationship between surveillance systems and power, will emerge outside of the individual portraits. At the same time, the small 30 x 40 mm photographs, which record an unknown side of close friends with whom we usually have pleasant conversations, will raise questions such as “Who are you? Where does your identity come from? and “Where does your identity come from? The mysterious expressions unconsciously created by close friends are broken down into numerous cells and reconstructed with pixelated color surfaces, as if to confirm their contours one by one, gently caressing them, as if to ask the question, “Who is the you that I am supposed to know? The face is transformed into a boundary between private and public space by reconstructing it with pixelated color surfaces, as if gently caressing its outline, as if checking its many cells. Of course, even if the model depicted in “tie” is an acquaintance or friend of Saw Sowen, she is still a distant stranger to us, the viewers. When we are confronted with an unknown person, what we see is an image selfishly interpreted by our subconscious mind and thoughts. There is a certain potential to violently create an image.

The newly produced portraits in this exhibition were created with the concept of “tie” in mind, and the images of the objects depicted in the portraits were changed. The motifs are selected from images obtained by using Google's image search form to translate the word “proof photo” into English, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, and other languages that would be spoken in the world in 2023. The images are selected from the hits. By depicting an unknown person, the distance to the model was flattened between Saw Sowen and the viewer, and the question “Who are you? At the same time, in the search for images in each language, various images of exemplary figures, gender, lookism, etc., from the region where the language is used, intertwine and emerge. When we ask the question “Who are you?” of a stranger depicted in a work of art, we are at the same time illuminating the latent thoughts at the bottom of the viewer's own consciousness and asking ourselves “What exactly did you see? You will find yourself asking, “What exactly did you see? By following the small squares of colored surfaces one by one with our eyes, we can feel the contours of ourselves as we disassemble ourselves and regain our own bodies.

— Moeka Suzuki