The exhibition will feature a collection of large and medium scale prints of his recent Portrait / Landscapes work in his first New York debut showing.
The new work will be shown at the Tompkins Square New York Public Library Gallery beginning March 9 through March 31, 2011. There will be a reception on Wednesday March 9 from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Ken Shung began his career spotting prints in the studio of Irving Penn and freelancing in the studios of editorial photographers Annie Liebovitz, Bill King, Bob Richardson, and assorted magazine photographers. Trained in the workings of studio lighting and editorial magazine photography, Mr. Shung set out to find his own style without the limits of the formal studio to produce work with the intention and idea that “The World is my Studio.”
Mr. Shung has worked for countless magazines shooting portrait assignments, alongside commercial lingerie campaigns starting with magazines like “7 days ” to New York Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, and a host of Time Inc. and Hearst Publications.
This showcase is a collection of images made during assignments and personal travels, showing a new direction and change from his formal portrait work, instead incorporating decisive moments and storytelling in the landscape /portraits genre.
Ken Shung sets out to make monumental images that embody the idea of the Pretty Picture. He captures disjunction, viewing our social spaces with wonder and tenderness and a magical decisive moment. In a typical Shung image, something ominous, apocalyptic, paradoxical, pictorial, and timeless has happened.
Ken Shung states, “It is said that a photographer/ artist is always searching to find his or her own vision and voice, otherwise they just ends up making a bunch of Pretty Pictures. With this collection of recent images I explore the nature of ‘When is a photograph just a Pretty Picture?’”
Mr. Shung considers his landscapes and portraits graphic, simple, psychological, introverted, and uncomfortably romantic, as well as very challenging conception-wise and academically well-conceived. Unsolved emotions and bold slices of life are part of the pleasures and smiles that are felt when you look at the “Pretty Pictures.”
