Why the Colorful Shoes?

02/04/2016

Excerpt from Invictus What’s with the colorful shoes? This is a question I get a lot when it comes to my self-portrait work. The short and simple answer, is that it’s an allusion to my youthful days as a competitive BBoy (break dancer). The long and complicated answer however, is that they’re there to represent the mysteries of life we have yet to solve. Sounds like art school bullshit, I know. But bare with me a little. The World of One is centered around the themes of dichotomy and paradox. I use the black and white suits as a metaphor …

A group of Asian gentleman standing in a circle on a hill, with a fall scene in the background. At the center of the circle is an Asian gentleman in white, floating in mid air on his back.

World of One: Memento Mori

12/31/2015

Memento Mori 2015 Archival Pigment Print from 35mm Negatives 24 x 47 1/8 inches | edition of 5 When our friends pass away, they take a piece of us with them. Their absence leaves a void in our lives, directly proportional to the impact they made in them. Memento Mori was created with this concept in mind, and was meant to be a tribute to my friends who’ve passed away. But I wouldn’t exactly consider this a successful image (not striking enough), so it’ll have to remain in the “almost good” pile for the time being. What bothers me …

Group of women with brown hair and dark jackets reading and taking notes on the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One women in the background in red reading lazily on her side.

Lazy Work – Visualizing Work and Play Through Art

11/12/2015

Lazy Work 2015 If you’re anything like me, trying to find the right balance between work and leisure is a daily struggle. When I’m too focused on work, all I can think about are the things I want to do when I finish (which typically include degenerate and self-destructive activities). However, even when I have free time on my hands, I find that it is no longer “free.” Instead, I start to stress out about the work I probably should be doing, but am too lazy to get started on it. This battle between my dedication to my work and …

Man dressed in a black T shirt with a championship belt on his shoulder, staring at himself in a white button-up with a different championship belt.

Conflictus – Shooting a Muay Thai Champion

11/03/2015

Conflictus 2015 It’s been a tough year for me production wise, and I think much of this has probably been of my own doing. My insistence on shooting film and focusing solely on one project has stifled production and handicapped my creativity. Happily, in recent weeks, I have opened up to some new ideas and am now starting to finally make some new work. Specifically, I have been taking the skills I acquired from developing my self-portraiture, and I am applying them to making portraits of others. I’ve always believed that the use of my likeness in the World …

An Asian man on a domed stone stage in a white suit with Asian men in black suits reaching from below.

World of One: Fortuna

10/27/2015

Fortuna 2015 Archival Pigment Print from 35mm Negatives 24 x 41 1/4 inches | edition of 5 Growing up in the US through the mid 80’s and 90’s, I was raised in a culture obsessed with trying to convince everyone that they are winners. This is an unrealistic outlook, given the fact that in most competitions, more often than not, there can be only one winning party. So statistically speaking, myself and others often ended up on the losing end of things. For me, this near obsessive focus on being a winner has actually had a negative effect. Mostly …

Group of asian men in dark suits jumping straight into the air forming a circle, one asian man in a light colored suit standing on his head in the middle of the group, on a grassy hill.

World of One: Grounded Ambitions

06/30/2015

Grounded Ambitions Archival Pigment Print from 35mm Negatives 24 x 41 1/4 inches | edition of 5 This image is about setting realistic goals for yourself. It is my way of illustrating the old adage: Reach for the stars, but keep your feet on the ground. Grounded Ambitions has been marinating in my brain pan for the last 2 years. I had originally imagined it very differently, with one figure sitting on the ground and the other figures jumping wildly in the air. But in my mind’s eye, I foresaw compositional problems with that arrangement. When it came to …

Jealous Pride

06/19/2015

Jealous Pride 2015 Archival Pigment Print 24 x 47 inches | edition of 5 Jealous Pride is about the fragile relationship we have with our own self-esteem. Simply put, when we’re feeling good, we’re totally unbothered by our insecurities. However, I often find that those same insecurities still linger in the dark recesses of our minds. Since I first started working on my World of One series, I’ve always thought to myself “This would probably look much better if it was a pretty girl in the picture instead of my face!” Now 5 years later, I finally have the chance to put that thought into action. …

World of One: Invictus

04/07/2013

Invictus 2013 Archival Pigment Print from 35mm Negatives 24″ x 43″ inches | edition of 5 “Being unconquerable lies with yourself: Being conquerable lies with your enemy.” – Sun Tzu’s the Art of War The next two pieces in the World of One, Invictus (Latin for “unconquerable”) being the first, will explore the idea of being alone in a crowd. While originally the idea was to only create one picture exploring themes of loneliness, the more I thought about it, the more my thoughts started to focus on the difference between being alone and wanting to be alone. For …

World of Two

08/17/2011

I’m now taking commissions!!! I can do composite pictures not just of myself, but of other people too!!! So if any of you loyal readers out there have ever thought it might be cool to have a “World of One” style picture of yourself doing x, y, and z, hit me up and we can work something out!!! This is a sample shot I took of my friends Eddie and Katya, both of which are great dancers, friends and a couple, in addition to being awesome hosts while I was there. This shot was so much easier to do than …

When in Doubt

07/06/2011

Sometimes it’s good to revisit old ideas with what newfound knowledge you might have earned. I’ve been working all weekend on some new World of One stuff, and failing miserably at it. This is the first time I’ve failed making an image for this series (and is also reminding me why I’ve been so adamant about doing more). I think I know how to fix it now though so that really just translates to more work this week. It’s not even that the image came out bad, it’s just that I know it’s not as good as it probably could …

Fine Art Photographs by Johnny Tang