1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Owen Leong
Original Nature, 4-28 July 2018, Artereal Gallery.
Photographer: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy of Artereal Gallery.
Owen Leong
Metabolic Composition 1
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
17 x 11 x 15 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
Owen Leong
Metabolic Composition 2
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
16 x 13 x 12 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
Owen Leong
Metabolic Composition 3
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
15 x 12 x 16 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
Owen Leong
Original Nature, 4-28 July 2018, Artereal Gallery.
Photograph by Zan Wimberley. Courtesy of Artereal Gallery.
Owen Leong
Metabolic Composition 4
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
11 x 16 x 9 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
Owen Leong
Metabolic Composition 5
2018
Concrete, hydrostone, rose quartz, black tourmaline, steel
11 x 18 x 13 cm, 20 cm diameter (base)
In this a series of sculptures, the artist’s face and hands are cast in concrete, smashed into fragments and reassembled into accretions with shimmering black tourmaline, warm rose quartz chunks, and ginger cast in hydrostone. These are emotional aggregations of the human form with natural stone, plant forms, and crystals.
Leong was interested in the poetic resonance of the body’s internal processes of creation and destruction. Metabolism is a process of life-sustaining chemical transformations within living beings, of breaking down, which releases energy, and building up, which consumes energy.