Hoo Fan Chon (b.\u202f1982, Pulau Ketam, Selangor, Malaysia) is a contemporary visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation. Growing up in the fishing village of Pulau Ketam, Hoo was shaped by local foodways, everyday rituals and vernacular aesthetics\u2014experiences that continue to infuse his work with an acute sense of cultural specificity and ironic insight. Educated at the London College of Communication, University of Arts London (BA Photography, 2010), he returned to Southeast Asia and co\u2011founded the Run Amok art collective in George Town, Penang (2012\u201317), an initiative that fostered experimental collaboration and grassroots cultural production in the region. Hoo\u2019s work is research\u2011driven and engages with class aspiration, cultural identity, informal histories and colonial legacy, using wit and subversive humour to expose the contradictions and frictions between social classes, official culture and everyday life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of his work reframes seemingly mundane phenomena\u2014food, taste, dining culture, found images, local ephemera\u2014as sites where broader social value systems are negotiated, commodified and contested. His stated aim is to \u201cmake fancy the village, make village the fancy,\u201d<\/em> a conceptual strategy that collapses binaries between high and low culture, tradition and modernity, mainstream and marginal. His practice also resonates with queer expression and alternative knowledge production, queering conventional narratives and inviting viewers to rethink familiar symbols and practices through a critical and playful lens.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hoo\u2019s major solo exhibitions include The World is Your Restaurant<\/em> at The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur (2021), where installation, painting and video unpacked the socio\u2011cultural politics of Chinese banquet culture, and Let Them Eat Salmon<\/em>at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA), Singapore (2023), which examined food and taste as cultural constructs. He has participated widely in international group shows such as The Ocean and the Interpreters<\/em> (Britto Arts Trust, Dhaka; Hong Gah Museum, Taipei; Solid Art, Taipei; 2022), Myth Makers: Spectrosynthesis III<\/em> at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022), and the Ilham Art Show, Kuala Lumpur (2022). In 2023 he presented works as part of the SEA AiR \/ NTU CCA Singapore residencies exhibition, and in 2025 his work featured in Orang\u2011Orang Suka Makan<\/em> at The Back Room, Kuala Lumpur. He has also completed fellowships with apexart (New York City, 2024) and served as an artist\u2011in\u2011residence with IASPIS in Stockholm, reflecting ongoing engagement with global artistic networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hoo Fan Chon (b.\u202f1982, Pulau Ketam, Selangor, Malaysia) is a contemporary visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation. Growing up in the fishing village of Pulau Ketam, Hoo was shaped by local foodways, everyday rituals and vernacular aesthetics\u2014experiences that continue to infuse his work with an acute sense of cultural<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5989,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[12],"jetpack-portfolio-type":[],"jetpack-portfolio-tag":[],"class_list":["post-1497","jetpack-portfolio","type-jetpack-portfolio","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-featured"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6355,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/1497\/revisions\/6355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fjetpack-portfolio-type&post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fountain.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fjetpack-portfolio-tag&post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}