Henry Mah
In his current art photography practice, Mah relies on both instinct and precalculation to survey vernacular scenes and urban topographies. Using natural light and available subjects, Mah’s photographs suggest an artful objectivity as he seeks to find the curious in the commonplace and the charged mystery in chance moments. As a street photographer with a formalist bent, Mah’s willfully casual portraits of people caught unaware and unvarnished feel both detached and intimate.
In images such as Lunch, Beachcomber and Drawing Melbourne Skyline, the banal acquires a heightened sense of reality. Each feels enigmatic, containing secrets. In Building HK and Coney Island, Mah also discerns the grand intricacy of everyday life in scenes teeming with detail, drama and visual splendour. For Mah, the ordinary world contains a coded language made up of art historical references, latent connections and private associations. Mining this territory with a careful eye, Mah makes the familiar and prosaic strangely compelling.
Henry Mah’s practice is a search for visual truth in the overlooked and commonplace. “Finding small episodes of beauty in everyday life give me hope.” Drawing a common thread throughout his work is a tendency toward parallels, patterns, discrete forms, and dynamic swatches of color. Coupled with his knack for capturing the human form in mundane action, Mah’s photographs exhibit a timeliness that firmly cements each image in an era and place while at the same time highlighting the more invisible communities in our society. “I’ve always been a champion of the underdog and it shows in my work,” Mah notes, “I care more about authenticity when it comes to people.” Preferring to shoot with existing light and often on medium format, Mah can capture minute details that might disappear in an instant. By combining a sharp eye for composition and balance with a street shooter’s aesthetic, Mah more accurately documents not only the specific scene but also the fleeting atmosphere.
In images such as Lunch, Beachcomber and Drawing Melbourne Skyline, the banal acquires a heightened sense of reality. Each feels enigmatic, containing secrets. In Building HK and Coney Island, Mah also discerns the grand intricacy of everyday life in scenes teeming with detail, drama and visual splendour. For Mah, the ordinary world contains a coded language made up of art historical references, latent connections and private associations. Mining this territory with a careful eye, Mah makes the familiar and prosaic strangely compelling.
Henry Mah’s practice is a search for visual truth in the overlooked and commonplace. “Finding small episodes of beauty in everyday life give me hope.” Drawing a common thread throughout his work is a tendency toward parallels, patterns, discrete forms, and dynamic swatches of color. Coupled with his knack for capturing the human form in mundane action, Mah’s photographs exhibit a timeliness that firmly cements each image in an era and place while at the same time highlighting the more invisible communities in our society. “I’ve always been a champion of the underdog and it shows in my work,” Mah notes, “I care more about authenticity when it comes to people.” Preferring to shoot with existing light and often on medium format, Mah can capture minute details that might disappear in an instant. By combining a sharp eye for composition and balance with a street shooter’s aesthetic, Mah more accurately documents not only the specific scene but also the fleeting atmosphere.
