UP Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition, 圖中圖, by artist Arthur Ou. The gallery continuously strives to challenge the boundaries and accepted understandings of photography, and Ou’s unique approach to interpreting the medium exemplifies this exploration. Ou’s works evolve through intricate processes and are conceptualized within the realm of photography while manifesting an aesthetic akin to painting. It is therefore an honor to present this exhibition. The show brings together four series of work that span a broad range of Ou’s 25-year artistic practice.

The term 圖中圖 (“picture in a picture”), employed by art historians specializing in traditional Chinese paintings, describes the incorporation of artworks such as paintings and scholar rocks within scenes of domestic leisure—a prevalent theme during the Song Dynasty. Intrigued by this concept, Ou has crafted his solo exhibition under this theme, delving into the lasting human longing to transform nature into a containable form.

Ou’s work embraces the potential shared sensibilities of both mediums, while shedding light on how their interaction and mutual influence enrich each other. Photography captures, painting builds worlds. In works from the series such as “Day of Times” and “Primer,” Ou finds overlaps across both mediums, creating a dialogue between form and concept.

“Day of Times” consists of large-scale analog prints depicting the evolving light on the ocean surface along the Point Reyes coast in California. The images are hand-tinted with waxed pigment, creating a delicate interaction between color, surface, texture, depth, and flatness. The gradated palette, inspired by Western color field painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and the Chinese painter Chang Ta-Chien, sits upon the photographic surface like a thin veil. “Primer” features exposures of glacial rocks around New York City, deposited some 18,000 years ago, with additional exposures of primer painted wire forms. Like the “Day of Times,” these prints are selectively hand-tinted to accentuate specific forms, treating primed wires as prepared surfaces for color.

The exhibition continues with works from two earlier series, “Earthworks” and “View,” both stemming from Ou’s interest in traditional Chinese painting and scholar rocks. The mud sculptures shown in “Earthworks” were endeavors to replicate analogous shapes of scholar rocks—stones collected for their microcosmic presence, pondered and contemplated by their viewers as both containable stand-ins of nature, but also as portals to imagined realms. “View” extends Ou’s interest in picture windows found in traditional Chinese gardens, which serve as framing devices for man-made representations of nature.