Image size: 57.5 x 71.1 cm
"Newspaper Paintings" is a series of works made in response to the overproduction and overconsumption of images today. The works are made by applying layers of white paint over spreads of the local newspaper, obscuring much of its content except for selected images that are intentionally left uncovered. Critical about working with images at a time of image saturation, Lai employs gestures of reduction and appropriation in this work as the primary modes of artistic production.Lai Yu Tong routinely investigates notions of the mundane and adequacy in daily life by way of drawing, sculpture and photography. The artist’s practice relies on the conditions of observation (i.e. what can be seen or heard from his apartment windows, wherein he also has his studio) and modest, ubiquitous materials like newspapers, cardboard boxes, and wood. From this perch, symbols of life emerge and are recorded, marking the innocuous as peculiar, sad, hopeful.
