'China As Paradise' | Thomas Hodges & Jason Ellis | 'Propaganda' Series of 12

Modernization (1978-1988) by Thomas Hodges & Jason Ellis“Propaganda” is an exhibition series of photographic artworks, created in a joint collaboration between my friend photographic artist Thomas Hodges, and graphic artist Jason Ellis.

Britain-born Thomas is an award winning and internationally acclaimed photographic artist, specialising in the art-nude genres and now living in Italy.

Jason is a multi-disciplined artist, but working extensively in digital and graphic art. He is of British nationality, currently residing in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Propaganda” is a collaborative series of works created and conceptualized in theme by Thomas Hodges, and featuring his photographic works, digitally manipulated by the super-imposition of graphic images, a technique created and conceptualized Jason.

The technique is uniquely fascinating to me, given the popularity of tattos and body art generally.

The theme of this series is “Chinese Political Posters”, and consists of twelve works, each depicting a nude model (six male and six female), to which posters from a specific period in Chinese cultural history are digitally grafted onto the modelʼs bodies. The nude model is symbolic to neutral prejudice; a blank sheet of paper, influenced only by the images and slogans depicted within the posters, to which he/she is/has been subjected.

The periods depicted in the artworks are the following:-
•    Japanese occupation (1937-1945)
•    Building the People’s Republic (1949-1956)
•    The Korean War (1950-1953)
•    Great Leap Forward (1956-1960)
•    Intervening years (1960-1965)
•    Down with imperialism! (1961-1966)
•    Cultural Revolution (1966-1968)
•    Mao, Jiang Qing, Lin Biao (1966-1972)
•    Workers, peasants, soldiers (1966-1972)
•    China as paradise (1972-1976)
•    New leaders (1976-1978)
•    Modernization (1978-1988)

The first of these artworks to have been completed is “Modernization (1978-1988)”, and is shown above. Now Thomas just sent me the second image “China As Paradise”, shown below. You can track progress of the project on Thomas Hodges’ website.

I will also post the entire series here at AOC, because I love both the concept and execution, and hope that Thomas and Jason will exhibit the entire series in Taiwan and China in 2012 before moving it to European and other international galleries.

‘China As Paradise’ by Thomas Hodges & Jason Ellis