Kien Situ

Kien Situ (b.1990, Australia) is a multidisciplinary Asian-Australian artist. His practice spans architecture, sculpture, film, sound and installation and is centred on prime motifs of formation (matter) and change (time). With a thematic focus on matter, ruin, distance, numerology and time in relation to new migrant identities; it functions to challenge, deconstruct and re-imagine notions of space, heritage and identity from an outsider multicultural perspective.

Drawing upon his Sinospheric background (Chinese/Vietnamese diaspora), his research considers the position and potential of immigrant/refugee/alien identities in Australia. Situ creates encounters, atmospheres and objects that are reflective of this contemporary emerging state of being; characterised by transformation, contradiction, tension and hybridity. The use of Chinese Mò ink is foundational to Situ’s practice and it is often meshed with architectural materials. The contradistinction of historical, personal materials with technical, industrial materials form his interrogation of interrelationships between matter and identity. In a similar motion to his lived experience; ink and matter is displaced, de-contextualised and given new expressions in present society.

The relationship between meaning and measurement is of critical interest to Situ. Numbers and numerology play a central role in his practice, as Situ works only in numbers that are multiples of either the numbers 8 and/or 4. The number 8 is considered an auspicious number in many Asian cultures associated with fortune and prosperity; whilst the number 4 is considered fatalistic and associated with death. Coded into manifest form, these numbers have a generative function in defining new ideological proportions, bridging the mystical and technical in a tense dance between fortune and fatalism.

Situ holds a Bachelor of Architecture (UNSW, 2016) and is currently receiving his Masters of Architecture (USYD, 2024). He has had solo exhibitions with institutions and galleries such as 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, The University of Sydney, Yavuz Gallery and Passage Gallery; as well as Cement Fondu (Group). He has been shortlisted for the Create NSW Artspace Visual Arts Fellowship 24/25. His work is included in Deloitte’s Corporate Art Collection and numerous private collections. Alongside this, he has designed numerous exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as an Architectural/Exhibition Designer. Situ is represented by Ames Yavuz Gallery.