Nighthawks Artists' Book
Sydney photographer and compulsive nighthawk Joy Mei En Lai’s latest exhibition opened at Disorder Gallery on 13 June 2024, revealing the unsettling stillness and beauty of the city between dusk and dawn.
Nighthawks showcased a photographic series taken between 2020 - 2024, mainly around Lai’s inner-city neighbourhood. Each image captures a seemingly ordinary location and a quiet moment, vibrant in the darkness with crisp detail. A suite of motifs punctuates the series, from breezeblocks to bridges, shipping containers to abandoned cars.
Lai’s works are composed with the eye of a painter and executed with the technical mastery of a professional photographer. Every Nighthawks image thrums with possibility: something profound happened seconds ago or is on the cusp of occurring. Like Lai, we are both witnesses and prospective participants.
Australian photo-media artist, Anne Zahalka writes:
Nighthawks takes us on a voyeuristic flight through the alleyways and streets of the city. Hovering behind the photographer, we see what she sees. Joy Lai captures her street scenes of the urban, ordinary and strange, with a keen and curious eye. She is hawk-eyed!
Joy Lai was born in Wellington, New Zealand. Trained in visual arts at Sydney College of the Arts, her work is held in public and private collections. A finalist in the 2023 Olive Cotton Award, her works have featured in Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, The Australian, Openbook and SL magazines, plus The Oblong Plot, a recent verse anthology by poet Chris Andrews.
Lai says: Like a lot of us, I walked at night during the pandemic to escape my small apartment. I channeled feelings of restlessness and uncertainty into images that try to present something disquietingly beautiful, however fleeting. The series has been simmering over the last four years and took on a life of its own. Documenting an off-kilter mood through lighting, texture, and form, all in hyper-real colour, was therapeutic. I was inspired by the disconnection in Edward Hopper's works and titled the series in homage to his 1942 painting, Nighthawks.
The opening of the Nighthawks exhibition coincided with the launch of Lai’s limited-run book of the same name. Lavishly produced, it includes the complete series forwarded by an essay from acclaimed writer, Mireille Juchau. This hand-numbered, hard-cover edition was available through Disorder Gallery and www.joymlai.com
Nighthawks ran from June 13 to 29, 2024 at Disorder Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
Linen bound, limited edition artist book of 50 copies, each signed and numbered.
27 photographs, 50 pages.
AU $350
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