Denny Dimin Hong Kong is pleased to announce Generation Regeneration, a solo exhibition by Greer Howland Smith, running from November 16 2019 through January 31 2020. This is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

Generation Regeneration features paintings, drawings and installation, which chart Howland Smith’s long-term studies into cellular research of plant forms and biopolitics. Howland Smith looks to track the cycle of systems – social, political, biological and technological – in order to find parity and beauty across these mechanisms. Within this body of work, she takes the organic forms of plants and studies the ecosystems of their life span – decay, regeneration and homeostasis. She uses this as a reference to a globalised sociopolitical status moving through decline and renewal as well as her own practice, which is an amalgam of ideas and systems that she generates and regenerates across different media.

Inspired by the concept of artificiality built up by technology and science, she corrupts and dissects her visualisations of botanical life. She does this with layers of paint and graphic lines made from spray paint, oil pastel and ink. These reveal, mask and dissect the images of plant life. The artist finds beauty in these processes as she seeks to show progression reaching beyond stagnation and decay.

Her installation, Regeneration, originates in an ongoing research collaboration she has with Dr. Mehmet Berkman of New England Biolabs and scientists at MIT Media Labs. This research has created a long-term investigation into how the interference of technology in nature blurs the boundaries between the artificial and the real. In Regeneration, she merges real plant life with artificial plants in a display that is part laboratory, part floral arrangement. The real and artificial live concurrently and symbolise how real and fake narratives co-exist in the sociopolitical system.

Greer Howland Smith lives in Hong Kong. She received her MFA from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and has studied fine art at Saga Art College in Kyoto, Japan and Rijnlands Lyceum, Oegstgeest, Netherlands. The artist has had solo exhibitions at The Brunner Gallery, New Orleans and has participated in group shows in Edinburgh, Yugoslavia and LAXART, LA. She has exhibited performance pieces and installations in collaboration with events run by the South Island Cultural District. Generation Regeneration will be her first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Her work has been featured in Monocle Magazine, South China Morning Post and Home Journal.

Please join us for an opening reception for the artist on Saturday November 16, from 3-6pm Denny Dimin Hong Kong is located in Mid-Levels at a private location which will be disclosed upon RSVP. The gallery is open by appointment throughout the run of the exhibition. For sales and press inquiries, contact Katie Alice Fitz Gerald at 5721 2638 or by email at [email protected].