TRICK SHOTS
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Trompe l'oeil has been around for as long as photography itself. Trick photography was the stock-in-trade of early cineastes, while fey Englishmen used it to put fairies at the bottom of the garden. Even Stalin realised the benefits of darkroom distortions when he took the decision to airbrush Trotsky from history. In his latest exhibition of prints "I'm as Australian as Ampol", artist Hou Leong follows in that tradition by digitally manipulating and distorting familiar images of Aussie national identity. Uncanny pictures of the Sydney Opera House afloat on the Li River (right) sit alongside snaps of Ayers Rock surrounded by the Great Wall of China.
As well as a displaced sense of geography, Leong's work shows a slightly meglomaniac tendency towards Forrest Gumpian shock tactics. Hence, in Autobiography, Leong appears alongside a string of famous types from Charles and Di (right), Chairman Mao and Marilyn Monroe, ambushing Western iconography and disturbing the visual hegemony of white Western culture with wit and humour.
Australian High Commission, Australia House, The Strand, London (0171-887 5297) to 25 May
Liese Spencer
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments