Emerging: Hoo Fan Chon
Into the World of Palpable Objects and Fruitful Delight was Malaysian artist Fan Chon Hoo’s (b. 1982, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) first solo exhibition in the UK. Shortlisted for Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4’s New Sensations, Hoo’s practice draws on the roles of the amateur antiquarian and anthropologist to examine cultural translation, appropriation and the histories embedded in cultural artefacts.
The exhibition brought together works inspired by Willow Pattern chinaware and Victorian copper jelly moulds. In the Blue and White Collection, Hoo reinterprets the familiar pattern, originally developed by English craftsmen in the late eighteenth century, whose imagined Oriental landscapes reveal how representations of other cultures are absorbed into local visual traditions. His jelly moulds, recreated using brightly coloured, luminous gelling agents imported from Indonesia, juxtapose decorative forms influenced by Rococo and Neoclassical architecture with unexpected materials, exploring the relationships between taste, nostalgia and cultural appropriation.
Through these transformations, Hoo examines how European cultural identity has been shaped by migration, trade and cross-cultural exchange. His works evoke the appearance and authority of historical artefacts while subtly disrupting their materials, origins and meanings, questioning assumptions about authenticity and the ways cultural narratives are constructed and transmitted.
Hoo Fan Chon is a visual artist based in George Town, Penang based in Penang whose interdisciplinary practice explores cultural translation, history, material culture and the construction of authenticity. Drawing on antiquarianism, anthropology and decorative arts, his work examines how objects acquire meaning through cultural exchange, colonial histories and changing perceptions of taste and identity.
Hoo studied photography at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. He co-founded Run Amok, an artist-run gallery and cultural collective in George Town, Penang, which supported independent artistic practices and community engagement. His solo exhibitions include The World Is Your Restaurant at The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur (2021), and Let Them Eat Salmon at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2023).
His work has featured in international group exhibitions, including Myth Makers: Spectrosynthesis III at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022), Young Birds from Strange Mountains at Schwules Museum, Berlin (2024–25), and menggodam at ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2025). He has also undertaken international residencies in New York and Stockholm, continuing to develop projects that explore cultural identity, informal histories and the circulation of ideas across different social and geographical contexts.
Year: 2011
Artist: Hoo Fan Chon
Venue: Eleven Spitalfields, London
Curated by: Keith Whittle
Publication essay: Keith Whittle
Country: United Kingdom