Reo Ma (b. 1992) manifests his ideas via creative impulses and a lack of inhibitions. Without any formal art training, he approaches art-making like an inventor, experimenting with materials and techniques as he learns through blunders and mistakes. On view at Rossi & Rossi Hong Kong from 27 July to 14 September, Ma’s first solo exhibition, gok3/gaau3, features multimedia assemblages and installations that weave themes of childhood, identity and the tension between the individual and the group. The presentation’s title refers to the romanisation of the Chinese word 覺, with gok3 meaning ‘awakening’ and gaau3 denoting ‘slumber’.

In the industrial area of Hong Kong’s Wong Chuk Hang neighbourhood, the artist often collects discarded materials with which he creates new forms. By incorporating rough wood and rusting metal into his works, Ma cautions viewers to keep a safe distance, as the weathered condition of the materials recalls their abandonment. His works also include leather, a nod to his background in fashion design. Soft skin therefore contrasts with hard edges, such as in Crazy Horse (2024), an assemblage of horsehide, metal and wood. In it, visible metal screws and nails fasten pieces of wood to form an anatomically accurate, yet Frankenstein-like, horse’s head. By rejecting the conformist outlook, he simultaneously rejects uniformity as a mechanism of the world.‍

Dark Room (2024), on the other hand, features a diorama of a theatre. Inside, there is a screening of a video from the artist’s childhood that his parents filmed as he raced on a mini motorcycle. The video screen is tucked into the box’s corner at an angle, and a single chair is set across the moving image. This miniature setting is replicated with a life-size chair in front of the diorama. The structure conceptually resembles that of a confessional: only the viewer sitting on it can see the footage and hear the artist’s parents’ aversion to his recklessness on the track. At the same time, the audio encapsulates the contradictory coexistence of permission and constraint. Doubt and arbitrary judgement are constantly present in Ma’s practice, as he reaches into his past to revisit the bitter experience of reconciliation.

This antagonism is an integral aspect of the artist’s life and art. Ma’s Rocking Childhood (2024) includes a 49cc 2-stroke engine, referring to the 64-kilometre-per-hour speed that the mini motorcycle from his childhood could reach. Yet, manifested in the form of a children’s rocking horse, the vehicle is unable to go forward — it can only rock back and forth. Like anticipation that builds up over time, the back-and-forth motion accumulates gas in a chamber that backfires with a loud ‘bang’ when the brake lever is squeezed. In this perpetual state of unresolved rage and impulse, the squeeze merely motions a release of energy without making any actual gains in distance.

Working with scavenged materials and personal history, Ma does not shy away from disclosing his own insecurities while probing at those of others. Binding together pieces of unrefined plywood and steel, complete with dents and splinters, Ma preempts his finished works by presenting the raw process of making them.