PRESS

THE OBSERVER 7 APRIL 2026
'The Taotie; A Spirit Inside; Landscape and Imagination' review - three superb shows mark 20 years of Compton Verney

*****5 Stars Laura Cummings The Observer

Compton Verney shows are very often reflective of the building's past, its art collection and landscape. So it is with 'The Taotie', the special commission of Gayle Chong Kwan's installation of photographs of herself in a sequence of masks fashioned from archival images rendered as x-rays. The material is complex: old photographs of people, places, plants and seeds, of historical plaques and ghostly documents. Each shot shows the artost in front of a significant institution, from the British Museum to East India House. Her father (who appears on one mask) was Chinese-Mauritian, and it is possible to unpick each allegory in terms of empire, sugar plantations, servitude and immigration. But Chong Kwan's aesthetic speaks straight to the ancient art around it, from the horse's curclicued nostrils to the bowl's colour variations. She pays homage to the past, in these masks, even while exploring the brutal politics.