Flagrante Delicto: Photographs by Gaye Chan
September 27, 2002 - February 4, 2003

Flagrante Delicto, meaning "the very act, or red-handed," refers to the thematic and procedural approaches explored in Gaye Chan's work. This exhibition will feature altered photographs based on found negatives made by professional and amateur photographers in Hawai'i from the 1940s to 1970s. Through strong colors, as well as darkroom and print surface manipulation, Chan's images force reentry into Hawaii's history without the guardrail of nostalgia, examining the master plans implemented decades ago that propelled Hawai'i toward non-sustaining agriculture and tourism. Such acts of transgression are caught flagrante delicto and, by a trick of mirrors, are reversed and recorded, brought to light years later as visual evidence.

The primary focus of Chan's work is the slippery area between the yearning for individual agency and the recognition of being mere flotsam in the tides of history. Chan's studio production is made primarily from found images and objects. In the series titled vadium - another word for "mortgage" - Chan uses negatives made in the 1970s by realty and insurance firms, then transposes imagery inspired by 16th to 18th century Christian paintings. The conflation of meaning mirrors the process in which land - a generator of life - becomes understood as a symbol of security, economic advancement and power.

Chan is an artist and a professor of photography at the University of Hawai'i. Born in Hong Kong, she immigrated to Hawai'i in 1969 as part of the second Diaspora of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. Chan has had solo exhibitions at Art in General (New York City), YYZ (Toronto), Artspeak (Vancouver), Gallery 4A (Sydney), San Francisco Camerawork, and the Honolulu Academy of Art. Chan is co-founder of art-activist collaborative DownWind Productions with Andrea Feeser. Their project is a recent Creative Capital grant recipient.