online exhibition | Kayee C

Kayee is a fine art photographer born and raised in Hong Kong before relocating to France. She uses techniques of self-portrait and digital composite to create storytelling images to explore the dynamics of relationships on different levels. Her works can be humorous, dramatic or melancholic staging of a variety of human interactions.

Human relationships are her main source of inspiration. She builds up her inspiration reserve through her daily observations of human interactions and her own emotions. Her favourite subject above all is the paradox between social disconnect and our desire to belong. She attempts to offer a critical, offbeat and sometimes poetic look on the way we relate to each other.

Characters staged in her portraits range from complete strangers, friends, coworkers, family members to some forms of deity, trapped in familiar settings from famous paintings, mysterious surroundings or entirely surreal dimensions. They often struggle to maintain a perfect balance between the roles imposed by the society and their primal desire to be themselves. Out of phase with the pursuit of an appearance of cohesion, some cannot help but display marginal attitudes such as laziness, contempt, sadism or disillusionment. They seem to be constantly asking, “Who am I supposed to be?”

Kayee works solely alone. From hair, makeup, wardrobe, lighting, camera set-up, acting to retouch, she is a lone ranger. This is her chosen way of working allowing her flexible hours and deep focus. She sees technical obstacles while being alone on set as fuel to problem-solving. Born partially deaf, she views her solitary way of working as a perfect balance between physical constraints and creative excitement.

Her main body of work consists of an on-going series entitled “Visual Guide to Social Life.” It stages various moments of a civilised social life, aiming to provide guidance to navigate in a world full of colourful intentions. Her other series are specific spin-offs from this core body of work.

Kayee’s works can be seen as a whole narrative piece in which each element tells its own story. Viewers should feel free to reorder them the way they wish in order to create their own narratives. Many of the photos were inspired by classical paintings such as the two versions of “Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist” by Caravaggio and “Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci.

Kayee practiced different art forms before fully focusing on digital photography in 2015. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Hong Kong with first class honours (2005).

“Visual Guide to Social Life”

“Visual Guide to Social Life” is an on-going series staging various moments of a civilised social life, aiming to provide guidance to navigate in a world full of intentions.

I Wish There Was Popcorn
Inspired by “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” of Rembrandt, this photo attempts to provide a critical view on social trends and aesthetics that seem to take away women's freedom of thought. In a sense, women are also participating in this tendency by judging their peers based on the same set of beauty standards.

Family Resemblance 1

Inspired by "Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber" of Juan Sánchez Cotán, with humour, this photo explores love, hatred and indifference in close relationships, and how all this can happen at the same time.

I Love Team Building 2

Inspired by "Dinner at Emmaus" of Caravaggio, this photo depicts the deep desire of some of us to simply disengage from forced interactions for the sake of creating an image of cohesion and harmony.

Merry Christmas 1 & 5

Inspired by “The Last Supper” of Leonardo Da Vinci, this work attempts to portray mixed feelings about Christmas and the end-of-year season, between advertised festivities, the desire for down time and our own loneliness.

I don’t deserve a face 3

Dedicated to everyone living in an emotionally abusive relationship. You may feel helpless and sink into shame for living such an experience. But someone out there will see your face and hear to your voice.

“Transferred”

This series was shot in the summer of 2021 in a hotel room and a tourist apartment, when Kayee deliberately shot outside of her studio, transferring her creative mind to different spaces.

Kayee spent more than a year prior to this series creating the majority of her works in the studio. There was a desire for a reset of her creativity before a new chapter. She chose to create works in spaces completely unknown to her. In each accommodation, entirely on her own, she spent between 20 hours to 2 days.

Against untamed backdrops, Kayee creatively dived into recurrent narratives registered in her subconscious mind. The result is a series composed of tryptiques, dyptiques and individual narrative images, about relationships involving a mixture of attitudes such as domination, submission, solidarity and mistrust. Characters in this series can be seen as family members, sisters, close friends, unspecified deity or simply reflections of oneself carrying conflicting desires. The scenes are volatile snapshots of stories that only briefly existed within those spaces.

Instead of trying to tell her own story, Kayee invites viewers to freely transfer their own experiences and interpretation onto the resulting works of this creative retreat.

Transferred 2

“End of the party”

This series was created during a stay in Le Perche, France, in a 15th-century manor house called Manoir Michelet renovated by a French couple who are retired art dealers.

“End of the party” consists of various mises en scene involving unexplained unconscious bodies, drama and mystery, all interpreted by the photographer herself, shot entirely without assistance.

Surviving characters in this series experience a range of emotions including guilt, shock, indifference as well as benevolence. It is not clear whether someone committed a crime or witnessed an accident or a natural death. These are all inspired by the experience of living as a surviving twin. “End of the party” can mean the end of the intimate time where twins share a womb together, the end of carefree innocence once the survivor’s guilt takes root, or the moment the surviving twin lets go of the guilt and makes peace with the facts with love and benevolence.

End of the Party 2

“Sisters”

“Sisters” is an on-going series staging close relationships with dramatic tension and ambiguous intentions.

Sisters 1
Inspired by the portrait of Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her sisters by unknown artist.

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KAYEE C online Exhibition EN