Heavenly Tedious is a site-specific installation which draws its title and formal inspiration from a Schubert sonata, the work invites the viewer into a panoply of interwoven arabesques. Cut from sheets of rubber, overlapping and intersecting motifs are derived from a diverse range of urban images – ornamental flora and fauna; camouflage; graffiti. Hovering on a threshold between memory and fantasy, the musical sense of theme and variation allow the artist to transform the space into a sort of visual cacophony of cultural narratives. The tension between light and dark, visible and invisible, further activate the installation, a visual embodiment of sound and silence.

Alongside the installation, Kao will present Liminal #1, 2, and 3, a suite of prints created in 2006 when Kao was awarded a Special Editions Fellowship at the Lower East Side Printshop. Like the installation, the prints draw on graffiti and architectural embellishment to create the metaphor of an urban second skin – the ghost-like image of a no longer existing original.