Bitten Peach 分桃
IAC Western Sydney University
Building EA, Parramatta South Campus, Western Sydney University
21 November 2024 - 28 February 2025
Bitten Peach 分桃 is an exhibition of contemporary art inspired by a queer reading of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊齋志異, a collection of classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling (1640-1715). The studio, as a physical and symbolic space, functions as a gestalt—a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In this exhibition, the studio embodies an aesthetic, cultural and sensual universe where historical narratives intertwine with contemporary queer identities.
My artworks use Asian gothic symbolism as a metaphor for haunting by heteronormative systems of power. When I read these tales, the boundaries between the supernatural and everyday reality are fluid. In my imagination, fox spirits, ghosts, and demons exist between realms as genderless creatures of otherworldly power and sublime form, focused on enlightenment through sensual pleasure.
The erotic, as a profound expression of human desire in all its extraordinary intensity and richness, explores the depths and nuances of human nature and consciousness. By blending historical materials with contemporary forms, I have created a series of queer-coded sculptures that navigate the subtle interplay between past and present, desire and fantasy, self and other.
Lanterns and candles symbolically light the way for the ones that have passed, while also illuminating the unknown to be seen. A bronze ghost claw clutches a dripping candle on a melting bronze staircase, suggesting a delicate tension between worlds. Another claw digs its talons into a rose wood table, referencing a lustful and life-changing encounter with a ghost. A giant glass peach, traditionally symbolising immortality, swells with an intensity of emotions. Oversized silk teardrops convey a sense of longing through cartoon aesthetics. A fox tail suspended by chain sheds glass teardrops towards a porcelain ring on the floor, like a portal into another realm. Bleach paintings on deconstructed cotton bed sheets feature ghostly calligraphic characters drawn from classical Chinese literature, erotic poetry, and love letters.
For this project, award-winning author Tom Cho was commissioned to write a piece of creative fiction as a looking glass into the exhibition. The Whole Cannot be Understood Without Reference to its Holes 無缺亦無圓 is the story of a young scholar who makes love to an ink spirit that springs forth from his imagination, and reflects the theme of art making as an intimate encounter with the self. From Pu Songling’s studio to Cho's writing space and my own artist's studio to the IAC gallery, this exhibition is a collaboration between artists and writers that unfolds through visual and literary mediums, connecting us across time and place.
This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW, a City of Parramatta Creative Grant, and The Chey Fellowship administered by The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University.
Antivenom: Year of the Snake
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
24 January-2 March 2025
Guided by the Snake’s wisdom and intuition, Antivenom: Year of the Snake showcases Asian-Australian, Australian, and Indigenous artists transforming harm into healing. Bold works on identity, gender, and the migrant experience embody resilience and renewal. Throughout the exhibition, events and performances activate the space, celebrating diversity and the power of creativity to help us shed our skins and begin the year anew.
Featuring artists Emil Cañita, Kirtika Kain, Owen Leong, Mai Nguyen-Long & M Sunflower.
Curated by Con Gerakaris, Curatorial Program Manager, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.
to look each other in the eye
Artspace
to look each other in the eye is the seventh annual Parramatta Artists Studios presentation at Artspace. Featuring Owen Leong, Ali Tahayori and Jodie Whalen, this edition explores the relationships between desire, intimacy, personal histories, and altered states of being.
Alluding to the proverb ‘the eyes are the windows to our soul’, the exhibition invites the viewer to pass through portals or membranes to look inwards (and outwards) into our internal and introspective landscapes. Through sculpture, video and photography, the artists remind us of the role of optics and positionality, and that how we each see the world is distinct and able to morph, fracture or transform. To look someone in the eye is to hold them in a reciprocal exchange. Sometimes this connection is within the lens of intimacy and sometimes of power, or both. To gaze is to see and be seen, to have oneself reflected and refracted back in an act of comfort and discomfort. Offering both moments of revelation and concealment, the works offer thresholds into the ways we see ourselves and each other.
Curated by Sarah Rose, Associate Curator at Artspace.
Summoning Circle
Artereal
Summoning Circle is a body of work using a sophisticated conceptual and material vocabulary drawn from kink aesthetics in a playful celebration of queer joy. Inspired by adrienne maree brown’s concept of “pleasure activism” - which centres pleasure as a political act - Leong’s sculptures and paintings serve as conduits of pleasure for social change, grounded in a queer politics of healing.
In this exhibition of sculptures and paintings, Leong has slowly vanished the body from his work, yet it is still clearly present in the evocative materials and forms of these new pieces. While turning towards new disciplines, Leong reimagines sculpture as self portraiture with residues of the body appearing in cast bronze fingers, leather cuffs and cut denim jeans.
At the heart of this collection lies the circle, a symbol of awakening and altered states of being. Each artwork is a portal inviting the viewer to step into the universe contained within. Delicate porcelain rings are pierced by bronze fingers and mushrooms. Soft sculpture silk drops, in golden yellows and opalescent whites, appear alongside harder industrial materials like stainless steel spreader bars and golden chains.
In Leong’s bleach paintings on deconstructed bed sheets, incandescent marks bloom like psychological Rorschach tests or brain scans. Circles of burning light appear like rings of interstellar fire in the night sky, framing provocative text commands that invite the viewer to surrender to pleasure. These artworks construct a narrative embodying a conversation between queer pleasure and politics.
Complementing the visual narrative is a commissioned work of fiction by Beau Lai, enriching the exhibition with poetic resonance. In Summoning Circle, Leong uses personal mythologies and queer aesthetics to explore power and control, and to reframe and reimagine identities and intimacies. At the heart of Leong's practice is a belief in the power of art to transform the way we see ourselves and others.
Conversations from the Collection
Newcastle Art Gallery
Conversations from the Collection is a Newcastle Art Gallery podcast series. Hear inspiring and thought-provoking stories from renowned artists who have contributed to Newcastle Art Gallery’s iconic collection. This six-part summer listening series dives deep into the experiences behind the artists' work to explore how life informs art. Season 2 features Lottie Consalvo, Jemima Wyman, Lindy Lee, Tina Havelock Stevens, Janet Fieldhouse and Owen Leong.
For the past two decades Owen Leong has developed a highly personal art practice that spans sculpture, photography, video, and installation. Through the lens of his own identity as a queer person of colour, Owen examines the social, political, and cultural forces that impact our lives. Often centring his own body within the frame, Owen has used his practice as a way to locate himself within the world.
In this conversation, Owen talks about the steely determination he has needed to pursue his career and why his decision to undertake a Master of Fine Art at the University of NSW was viewed as 'somewhat controversial' by his family.
Owen Leong was invited to write an artistic process essay in issue 64 of Artist Profile.
“Looking back over my artistic practice, I can clearly see the signposts leading to what I’m making in the studio today. In recent years, I have been playing with cycles of creation and destruction: casting my body in gypsum and concrete, smashing these casts into pieces, and reforming them into new sculptural forms to be cast once again. Having worked with my own body for two decades, I now realise this moment was a gradual process of disappearing my body while hiding it in plain sight, like a magician slowly vanishing from the stage. I am gradually moving away from figurative work (physical or photographic) towards non-representational forms, and I’m enjoying the mystery, play, and discovery of sculptural materiality.”
Instagram @owen_leong
