Somewhere Too (solo exhibition)   l   Art Atrium, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Desmond Mah’s evocative paintings embody the subjective nature of memory. Drawing on a childhood spent in close proximity with the ancestral spectres of a Taoist temple, Mah reworks personal narratives through ethereal webs of colour, trapping and obscuring creatures borne of transplanted Chinese mythology and pop culture. His use of incense brings the work to life, immersing audiences in a sensorial experience of something unknown yet compelling in its familiarity. For Mah, these works offer glimpses into a continuous, living stream of consciousness, giving clarity to the fractured inhabitants of memory and imagination. Disrupting ideas of flatness and depth, abstraction and depiction, past and present, Desmond Mah takes us on a fantastical journey through the overlapping histories and outlooks of a boy moving between many worlds in search of somewhere.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Abdul Rahman-Abdullah, artist

Dr Oliver Krischer, Deputy Director of China Studies, University of Sydney,
former managing editor of Art Asia Pacific magazine.