SARAH & SAMUEL

In a modestly sized studio in Fo Tan, a couple works by side by side. By the window, there are paintings by Hong Kong artist Sarah Lai, who engages with image and popular culture in her scenographic recreations of space. Near the door, one finds research materials and sculptures by the US-born Samuel Swope, revealing preoccupations with machines, drones, and flight. These practices, conceived in parallel from a shared studio and over a 19-year relationship, are shown together for the first time in “Sarah & Samuel”—an exhibition that is not a duo exhibition, but an exhibition about being a duo.

Familiar older works from Lai and Swope’s oeuvre are reconfigured across the exhibition space. A contrapuntal entanglement emerges, with the principal theme of latent tension, or concealment, that playfully hints at the couple’s subtle influences on each other. In Lai’s paintings, scenes from the 1986 Hong Kong film A Better Tomorrow are juxtaposed with Tender Trap (2018-25), a nude female veiled within an amber case. Meanwhile, Swope’s works toggle between dormancy and movement. A tire wheel, suspended from the ceiling via an airplane ratchet strap, hints at imminent movement like a performer awaiting instruction, and an archival print shows a drone in mid-flight blur.

Augmenting these older works are two new collaborative pieces which articulate the languages of exchange between partners. In the multi-component installation Sarah (2025), retrofitted audio devices emit a voice recording of Swope repeatedly calling Lai’s name. Scaling a range of emotions—ecstatic, anxious, mischievous, pensive—the vocal recall wraps around the exhibition, generating space for curiosity. Why doesn’t she answer? Is she there? Reflecting the non-verbal elements of a relationship, Lai’s response instead takes the form of selected physical hosts for Swope’s voice, among them a talking bird ornament and a cassette tape player. One particularly sentimental object, a vintage alarm clock of a redhead basketball player from the popular anime Slam Dunk, was chosen for its resemblance to Swope and a similar clock Lai possessed as a teenager, dovetailing personal and shared memory.

In Her Breath (2025), the exchange is swapped, with a recording of Lai’s breathing dictating the movement of a Crookes radiometer chosen and customized by Swope. As the recording feeds signals to a light source, the radiometer vanes begin to spin, disseminating rays across the space. Borne from accumulated memories of long-distance phone calls and nightly reconnections, the work is reminiscent of lighthouses, signal towers, and other monuments to communication.

On the surface romantic gestures, these works also narrate a history of longing, absence, and sacrifice, geographical distance and conflicting schedules. Yet in recording the ostensibly intangible elements of voice and breath, Lai and Swope resist consumerist and capitalist measurements of time and productivity, both in the relationship and in their artistic practices.

Away from these larger expressions, a miniature sea painting by Lai and a luminescent tube of airborne dandelion dust by Swope can be found in the corridor space. Created independently a decade apart, Reef (2008) and C-Luster (2018) together express a quieter, more intimate sensibility, and could be seen as stand-ins for the artists themselves. In its thoughtful renegotiation of space, identity, and companionship, “Sarah & Samuel” rejects the flawed idea of absolute unity, instead revealing a Venn diagram of subconscious intersections between two individuals. At its core, an unforeseen third player reveals itself: the enduring nature of invisible collaboration.

For further information and media inquiries, please contact Neil Wong (neil@phdgroup.art). For sales inquiries, please contact Willem Molesworth (willem@phdgroup.art) or Ysabelle Cheung (ysabelle@phdgroup.art)