Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze‘s upcoming exhibition, City Poetry, accompanies the French photographer as he deepens his exploration of Hong Kong and Cantonese culture.
Jacquet-Lagrèze set himself the task of documenting visually striking street signs and took them home, where his wife would help to translate them, slowly enabling him to decipher the characters that adorn this city’s streets.
As his archive grew so did his knowledge. Forming sentences with photographs of individual characters results in poems that are both visual and linguistic.
An opening reception will be held on Thursday, 6-9pm, June 6, at Blue Lotus Gallery, G/F 28 Pound Lane, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong.
The exhibition, organised and curated by Blue Lotus Gallery, will open its doors from Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-6pm, June 7 to July 7 at the same location.
The exhibition will feature about 30 works including some pieces from his previous projects, Wild Concrete, Concrete Stories and Blue Moment.
There will be an artist talk and other events surrounding the exhibition, and his books will be available.
Jacquet-Lagrèze said, “When I walk the streets of Hong Kong, I love to admire the traditional Chinese characters created for shop signs and building names. They each have their own specific features and qualities, especially in the older districts where they were designed using various methods, each a highly trained skill: carved into wood or stone, hand-blown neons, glued tiles or hand-painted characters.”
He added City Poetry is his most personal work to date.
Jacquet-Lagrèze is a graphic artist with a Masters degree in multimedia and art from East Paris University. He said his interest in photography began during his period working in Los Angeles and Tokyo. It subsequently blossomed into a passion after his arrival in Hong Kong in 2011.
View Jacquet-Lagrèze’s preview photo collection Blue Moment.
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