Sophie Teh

In conjunction with the Chinese New Year, Mutuo presents ‘’Have You Eaten Yet?’,  a solo exhibition by artist Sophie Teh. The exhibition of new paintings and installations runs from 17 Feb to 12 Mar 2022. 

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Sophie Teh invites visitors to experience a world of implied meanings and suggestion through  their interactions with food, specifically foods that were significant to the artist growing up in a  Chinese Malaysian family in the 1980s. Food is a cornerstone to Chinese culture. “Have you eaten yet?” was the colloquial greeting in the community she grew up in instead of ‘How are you?’ 

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As a child, the combination of sausage, eggs and rice were her family’s fast food. In this solo show,  she manipulates these foods to address issues of ambition, perceived desirability/undesirability and cultural identity of the Chinese diaspora. These are themes that she has been concerned  about since her childhood. The issues in her work are further heightened through more recent  experience as in immigrant to Europe in the last 20 years. 

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Teh’s art sets out to test our learned social and cultural queues with familiar items represented  in unfamiliar ways. The show presents artworks related to the perception of Asian peoples,  especially young women of East Asian heritage, who are viewed as subservient and  hypersexualised. This is contrasted with the artist’s own perception of East Asian women as  independent individuals, which many of her work addresses. Instead of preparing and serving up  food in her still lives, Teh plays with it in outlandish manners to break with stereotypes. 

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Location: MUTUO 
Address: Carrer de Méndez Núñez, 7, 08003 Barcelona
Dates: 17 February – 12 March 2022