Chong Boon Pok

Contemplating the Everyday
-An exhibition of practice-led PhD fine art research

Private View: 4 July 2011 (Mon), 6pm – 8pm

Exhibition: 5 – 8 July, 11am – 5pm
Venue: Room CE 4-12, CE 4-13 & CE 4-22
4^th Floor, Central House Building
London Metropolitan University
59 – 63 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7PF

This exhibition is the result of my practice-led PhD fine art research based on the title The Mind of the Everyday in Contemporary Fine Art and Zen Buddhist Practice. It emerged from my personal experience and discoveries as an artist working from a Buddhist background. The core of the research is my studio practice with the theoretical framework operating in the intersection of personal and social perspectives. It seeks to develop an enhanced understanding of the everyday in contemporary fine art and Zen Buddhist practice in new and original ways, through bringing forward and integrating the physical and theoretical components of my studio practice as presented in this exhibition. 

Devoting attentiveness to and contemplating the everyday is central to my art practice. The everyday that I refer to is the trivial, ordinary and inconsequential objects and activities that people tend to take for granted such as the activities of cooking and having a meal. And, everyday objects are such as the cutlery we use for eating, something we are so familiar with that we are less likely to give a second thought when we encountered them. Besides assembling everyday objects into sculptural forms and installations, part of my work involves using food and cooking to perform and interact with people visiting my exhibition.

My studio practice operates within subjects, time and space using the everyday, and engages aspects of mindfulness, self, memories, social, cultural and symbolic form. My cultural upbringing and life experience are often revisited, examined and evidenced in my work. The work embraces ideas of as-it-is-ness, nothingness, the impermanent nature of things, and the interconnectedness of objects and people, all of which are relevant to Zen Buddhist discourses of the everyday.

Contact:  (E) andrewpok@hotmail.com or (M) 07979 55 88 18