New Haven, Connecticut
“Unbounded” (on view through June 28, 2026) surveys 10 years of Jes Fan’s expansive approach to sculptural forms and materials. By incorporating living matter and “invisible substances” (like hormones) into their work, they explore the interplay between biology and identity, including trans, queer, and occupied identities. Rejecting binaries of all types, Fan offers new perspectives on how the grotesque and the uncanny operate today.
Testo-Candle and Testo-Soap, both from 2017, feature fleshy, pink silicone slabs supporting depo-testosterone vials. One slab holds a candle and the other holds a bar of soap, each object made with traditional materials and then infused with the prescription drug. This almost clinical presentation, though orderly and direct, still manages to conjure the cultural and political miasma surrounding objects of biological hegemony. In these works, Fan challenges and breaks with past definitions which locate the grotesque in the othered body itself, not in the social conditions encroaching on that body. Pushing forward the cultural and political realities around these objects makes it clear that it is neither the non-conforming body nor its shapes, secretions, injections, or presentations that are grotesque. Today, the monstrous body is the state and its increasing attempts to control which bodies fit into what category: male, female, or the much-maligned other.
Rupture with the classical grotesque and investigations into bodily alterity permeate “Unbounded” in subtle but calculated ways. Gut (2023), hidden inside a wall, is only visible through three delicate orifices hand-sliced into the Sheetrock. The interior space is dark, except for a low light bouncing off the sculpture. Clear glass shines from within another form that radiates warmth and a coppery sort of glow. From the outside, peering through the small slits, what we’re seeing remains unclear, but it feels organic. It’s a relatable presentation—oftentimes our bodies are inaccessible to us, unrecognizable and behaving in unseen ways. The wall text explains that the hidden sculpture is a resin model reproducing a CT scan of Fan’s gastrointestinal tract. The resin was sanded and painted to look like the bark of the Aquilaria tree (the source of agarwood, known for its pleasing scent and used for both medical and ceremonial purposes, so overharvested that it is now considered endangered).
Mottled, bark-like surfaces appear throughout the exhibition, adding a sometimes uncannily natural sense to Fan’s work, most notably in Bivalve II (2023), which feels like it might begin pulsing or writhing at any moment. A loose, asymmetrical grid reminiscent of building infrastructure or a cage holds an organic shape in the center. It doesn’t necessarily appear trapped; instead, it seems to merge with the armature in various spots. Here, the mottled surface resembles an old car chassis that’s been sanded down to reveal several layers of old paint jobs—it’s a satisfying texture, implying growth and change. Two rounded, gravid forms give the shape a bodily feeling; one curve is made from glass and hangs like a breast or belly, which Fan refers to as a “pearl.” Again, there is nothing to suggest that the object has anything to do with Fan’s body—or a human body at all—except the wall text, which specifies that the textured shape, made from polymer-modified gypsum and pigment, comes from another scan of Fan’s body.
A bivalve is an aquatic invertebrate with a hinged shell, such as an oyster. Fan frequently references oysters in “Unbounded,” most directly and narratively in the nearly six-minute-long video Palimpsest (2023). In that video and in Bivalve II, the artist refers to their experiences growing up in Hong Kong under the influence of colonial rule (the United Kingdom returned Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997, after more than 150 years of occupation). Oysters serve as an apt metaphor for the major themes in Fan’s work, where trans people and those living under colonial rule are constantly filtering the cultural and societal waters in which they are steeped. As with a bivalve, this filtering allows the individual to keep what is nourishing while rejecting the toxic and potentially harmful in order to flush it out—or turn it into a pearl.
