LUCKY STAR, LOVE YOU FOREVER

Chantal X.W.

12th of June - 3rd of August

Private View 12th of June 6-9pm

Chantal X.W.’s solo show LUCKY STAR, LOVE YOU FOREVER, presents an installation which merges representations of Asiastic femininity into sentimental objects, excavating questions of subjectivity, agency, and representation. X.W. considers the image of girl as material, placing her within pinball games and lightboxes, probing what it means to live as ornamental surface. The exhibition’s largest sculpture, an extensive assemblage of zinc etching plates, depicts a formidably cutified girl whom we watch as she watches herself. An important reference and source of material for X.W. is Piccadilly (1929), starring Anna May Wong, a Chinese-American actor who presents herself through a depersonalised stardom, rather than authenticated fetish. Wong stars as Shosho, a scullery maid working in a Soho club, its owner hiring her to dance in the hope that her ‘novelty’ will draw in a much needed crowd.

Chantal X.W. is an artist and musician based in London. Her practice is concerned with desire, commodity and cuteness and their intersections within Asiatic femininity and pop culture. Through reworking minor aesthetics and ephemera, X.W.’s work considers the implications and emotional affect of spectacle, examining the conditions of aesthetic being alongside her physical positioning as both a performer and observer.