Wenhan Hu

Debris / Tumors

:: 2024 - ongoing ::





















Debris/Tumors is a photographic guerrilla war for bodily self-determination. It begins from my body dysmorphic disorder and the daily pressure of social media, advertising and image platforms that script desirable bodies. Here, the rules of the play are never simply given: the freedom to act, appear and shape one’s own image is disciplined by algorithms, commercial aesthetics and internalised censorship. It asks how to reclaim that freedom when the gaze has been privatised by the image economy.

The camera is not neutral. It is an aggressive gaze—judge, voyeur, mirror of power. I respond with optical shields: mirror films, freeform cast glass and reflective surfaces. These twist, stretch and fracture the body before the lens, then digital processing dissects and reassembles it into a hyper-fragmented self-portrait that refuses coherent, consumable form. In Debris, body and background are flash-lit like a fashion shoot or selfie; in Tumors, found fashion, advertising and film stills are projected onto the body and wall, so the body fights existing images before becoming their ruins.

This is not self-portraiture as self-optimisation. It is the aftermath of a battle. The body is both target and weapon; the mirror is a shield that leaves scars. Smudges, residues and broken contours remain on every reflection. Against the demand for a smooth, desirable body, I offer one that is messy, discontinuous and proudly broken. In fragmentation lies liberation: a way to exist outside the exhausting labour of self-optimisation and to practise artistic freedom without censorship—not by escaping mediation, but by corrupting its signals, redirecting its gaze and keeping the human imprint visible. Photoshop and optical distortion become hand-like gestures: iterative, improvisational, imperfect. The glitch is not failure but an everlasting play of gaze.









Cuttlefish

:: 2023 ::








Cuttlefish is a series of carefully staged photographs that examine how my body is situated in today’s beauty-obsessed culture. It explores the circulation of gaze between images, the camera and ourselves—a loop where looking, being looked at, and looking at oneself never fully separate. Each photograph is essentially a spatial collage or temporary installation of pictures, mirrors and other objects, mostly with my body present in the same interior space. I treat the room as a stage, a game board, and a trap.

The title refers to the cuttlefish’s ability to change color and texture, to camouflage, to display images on its skin. This biological play of appearance resonates with the series: the body as a surface that plays with visibility, disguise, and desire. Drawing its palette from fashion imagery, Cuttlefish uses color and colored lighting to render an atmosphere of unease. Exquisite yet bizarre juxtapositions—mirrors, objects, cut-out printed images and body fragments—are arranged within the interior. These elements play with one another, producing a metaphorical narrative about the tension between the glorified and the natural, obsession and fear, revealing and concealing. Under the photographic gaze, every object becomes an image form. Mirror reflections serve as an entry, a boundary, and a signifier of self-view. The body is never simply present; it is mediated, framed, fragmented, and reflected back.