AUGUST
Owen will be presenting a preview of new photographic artworks with Anna Pappas Gallery at the Melbourne Art Fair. Artists exhibited include Matt Coyle, David Palliser, Owen Leong, Cyrus Tang, Vin Ryan, Grant Nimmo and Christina Hayes. Anna Pappas Gallery will be situated at Stand A59 during the Melbourne Art Fair, from 4-8 August 2010.

For more information visit the Melbourne Art Fair.

JUNE
Owen has been interviewed by writer Lian Low for Peril, an Asian-Australian online magazine of arts and culture. The theme for the latest edition of Peril is 'Creatures', which explores the multiplicity of creatures in human fantasy and narrative. Owen discusses his new Birthmark series, and the concepts and symbols that inform his art practice.

Visit Peril to read the interview.

Anna Pappas Gallery will present a group show at The Depot Gallery in Sydney from 15-26 June 2010.

An exciting range of painting, photography, sculpture and video works will be exhibted by artists Christina Hayes, Owen Leong, Grant Nimmo, David Palliser, Vin Ryan, Vipoo Srivilasa and Cyrus Tang.

MAY
An exhibition review of Birthmark by writer Dan Rule has been published in The Age (Saturday 22 May 2010).

"Owen Leong's digitally altered photo works float in a kind of post-cultural ether," writes Rule. "Uniformly staged, composed and lit, this set of 12 portraits of Asian-Australians seems an astute and poetic meditation on an ugly, backward, but in some cases, still existent typecast. Leong's subjects are young, beautiful, sensuous and of different gender, heritage and ilk. Their eyes, however, are blackened uniformly, their faces masked by the ornate wing patterns of the migratory Bogong moth. On first pass, the allegory seems clear enough. Leong's works show individuals tarred by the same brush - the Bogong, the pest - their uniqueness quashed and blackened out. But there's something transcendent about Leong's works that makes them anything but morbid and one-dimensional."

Download a full copy of the review [PDF 1.1MB]

In anticipation of the launch of Birthmark, Anna Pappas Gallery has released a commissioned essay by curator and writer Damian Smith.

"Fastidiously researched and executed, there is little about these works that is left simply to fate," writes Smith. "The models are carefully selected, the lighting and poise just so. Finally the digital post-production occurs with absolute attention to detail, this being the moment where those hallmark wings and imperious, obsidian eyes, devilish dark and sinister, take form. Were I to name other Australian artists whose practices likewise explore gender, ethnicity and identity, then Christian Thompson, Kate Beynon and David Rosetzky would be there. Leong is somewhat younger but already his work is clearly conceived and completed, so much so one readily expects to see him, in the not too distant future, included in major thematic shows; his exploration of the moth as signifier but one of the notable facets therein."

Download a full copy of the essay [PDF 360KB]

Birthmark presents Owen Leong’s most recent series of photographic portraits depicting Asian-Australian ‘shape shifters’. Displaying Australian native moth markings on their faces, Leong’s subjects appear to slide between male and female, human and animal, real and unreal. Leong’s practice explores the politics of representation, investigating how the body is physically, socially and culturally framed.

In this new series he creates visual metaphors for the strange and complex meanings of belonging in contemporary Australia. This is a shift in Leong’s practice away from the artist’s body as the subject of his investigation, and towards a broader, plural field of enquiry into belonging and identity.

The exhibition will take place at Anna Pappas Gallery from 13 May - 5 June 2010, with an opening preview on Thursday 13 May, 6-8pm.

RSVP by 9 May to info@annapappasgallery.com

For more information please contact Anna Pappas Gallery:

JANUARY
Owen has been shortlisted for the Art & Australia Contemporary Art Award.

Winners of the latest round of the Art & Australia Contemporary Art Award are Peter Madden and Susan Jacobs. Shorlisted entrants include Paul Adair, Emily Ferretti, Michaela Gleave, Georgie Hill, Matt Hinkley, Owen Leong, Cyrus Tang and Krystie Wade.

This is an open competition that supports emerging professional artists through the publication of their work on the back cover of Art & Australia. Additionally, one recipient's work will be acquired annually for the Art & Australia collection.

The winners of the award are selected by Art & Australia in consultation with its Advisory Board members Anna Waldmann, Justin Paton and Rex Butler.

In other news, Owen is the first artist to be featured on the new website of the International Network for Diasporic Asian Art Research. INDAAR is an international network for researchers interested in comparative and transnational studies of diasporic Asian art.

The network facilitates opportunities for initiating transnational dialogues and generating collaborative research projects. Art by artists of Asian descent in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States is a significant cultural production, both in historical and contemporary terms.

This network is a special project of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN) and established in association with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project entitled “Being Asian in Australia and the United States”.

For more information about INDAAR visit: http://indaar.asianaustralianstudies.org/