Undercurrents

Ian Teh has been documenting China for the past ten years and has exhibited his photography all over the world. He conducts inquiries focusing on situations of unrest and the paradoxes of modern society that he seeks to better understand. Throughout countless journeys within China, he offers a glimpse of another life and another world rarely seen, in places such as the coal mines of the northeast and the border towns along the Sino Russian North Korean border. Teh is a storyteller. He organically threads together images of integrative colours, creating evocative storylines based on real events, alive with nuances. He encourages his viewers to look beyond the outwardly descriptive nature of his work, discover the narrative that lies beneath, and fill in the gaps. Teh's photography is a potential dialogue, an eloquent starting point for the viewer to travel beyond the limits of a photograph's frame and moment in time.