Hoo Fan Chon

Hoo Fan Chon (b. Pulau Ketam, Selangor; based in George Town, Penang) is a Malaysian visual arts practitioner working across the mediums of painting, sculpture, photography, and film. His research-driven projects reframe everyday life with irony and wry humour, examining how our value systems fluctuate between cultures while interrogating notions of cultural authenticity. Growing up in Pulau Ketam, a fishing village off the coast of Klang, Hoo has an affinity with fish, which has become a recurring motif in his artwork.

Hoo graduated with a BA in photography from the London College of Communication, University of Arts London (2010) and co-founded the Run Amok art collective (2012–17) in George Town. He was one of the recipients of the first cycle of the Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR), organised by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2022, which allowed him to pursue his research in Finland. Notable recent group exhibitions include “The Ocean and the Interpreters” at Britto Arts Trust (Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2022); “Myth Makers: Spectrosynthesis III” at Tai Kwun (Hong Kong, 2022); “The Ocean and the Interpreters” at Hong Gah Museum and Solid Art (Taipei, Taiwan, 2022); and the ILHAM Art Show 2022 at ILHAM Gallery (Kuala Lumpur, 2022). His solo exhibitions include “Let Them Eat Salmon” (NTU CCA, Singapore, 2023) and “The World is Your Restaurant” (The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur, 2021).

He is currently a fellow at the apexart Fellowship programme in New York City, from November–December 2024.