26 March to 8 May 2022

Open to visitors from 22 April

Friday to Sunday 1-6pm

By appointment

____

 

Hidden Space is delighted to present Linger (A While) by Masahiro Nakamura, the fourth recipient of our annual Hidden Space Award.

 

In a series of large-scale photographs, a youthful body is seen in a variety of cramped domestic settings. Whether a glimpse of a back in a bathtub behind a butterfly-patterned shower curtain or curled unclothed in sunshine on a bed hemmed in by racks of clothing, the images hover somewhere between staged and candid, between innocent and knowingly alluring. There is a nascent sexuality, both amplified and restrained by its homely setting, by thresholds of isolation and privacy, or lack of.

 

Around the body, details of the crowded home press in, surrounding, informing, allowing us further tantalising glimpses of an environment that both shapes and constrains. This is the artist’s own body on show - angular, vulnerable, desirous, desirable. In Linger (A While), Nakamura delicately explores the interior tumult of the young adult and the intensity of inarticulate feeling. In the invitation to look, we are both joined in intimacy and the potential breaching of a private boundary. Perhaps both are proposed. Our gaze is not returned.

____

 

Masahiro Nakamura 葉政宏 (HK/JP) received his BA in Fine Art from RMIT Australia and HKAS in 2021. His mainly lens-based practice focuses on identity and sexuality, combined with and magnified through location, from domestic spaces to the wider cityscape. His graduation installation, Turbulence, was selected for multiple emerging artist shows, including HK Foreword 2021, Fresh Trend 2021, and “What’s Next? A Joint Exhibition of Young Artists” at Lumenvisum. Linger (A While) is his first solo exhibition.

____

​

In 2018, we introduced the annual Hidden Space Award. This supports an artist graduating from the RMIT University and Hong Kong Art School BAFA programme. The awardee receives a solo exhibition, with curatorial and installation support to develop their project, plus full venue access for one month prior to the exhibition to work in and re-articulate the space.