Artwork Information

In Yuk King Tan’s work there is often an inter-play between past and present. Chinese fans are traditionally artisan objects but they can also be, like these, bought very cheaply at Asian emporiums and $2 shops. These altered fans support, not delicately hand-painted silk, but mechanical laser transfer prints made at a shopping mall T-shirt booth.

The title Graft refers at once to the medical procedure – here the ‘skin’ of the body is dissected photographically – and a ‘floating world’ of layered cultural references. (Recent Contemporary Acquisitions, 2002)