As a celebrity hair and makeup artist, Woo pushes back against the control of fashion and surrenders his acrylic to what gravity does best…
From November 6-8th, Hong Kong native and Paris based contemporary artist, Wallace Woo held an exhibition at 7 Rue des Gravilliers. The founder of Stalactite Aesthetics and the pioneer of Geological Abstractionism, transforms past the surface to philosophical excavation, digging beneath the visible in search of the invisible. Piggy backing off his June exhibition, “Stalactite” which presented the idea of Geological Abstractionism- Woo’s theoretical framework- Ridge allows one to pause from the kinesthetic energy of everyday life.
Offering no new answers, the way that Stalactite does, Ridge provides process. Woo wanted visitors to leave with one central question, a question that the fashion world he came out of knows quite well: when control vanishes—when the outcome is no longer guaranteed—can awareness still hold? The acrylic paint flows in his pieces, where Woo works with gravity to let time and chance fall where it may. He calls this “a record of surrender.”
As visitors passed the pieces, they explained what they were seeing as: “You don't look at these paintings—you stand in front of them." And a second observer likened the exhibition to addiction that we all have of being on our phones. "It's the opposite of scrolling."
Like in fashion and in the visual art world, details are managed and outcomes are controlled. Ridge, on the other hand allows the paint to find its own space and take its own form. For Woo, his Geological Abstractionism is a pushback where he is saying, “time does not flow away- it sediments.” He saw the need for a pushback because we live in a world where photos are produced at mass, and the meaning of things produced is quickly consumed and forgotten.
Woo’s exhibition ran November 6-8th in Paris | Photo credit: Wallace Woo Art
A celebrity make-up artist and former fashion editor- though Woo does these works less and less, taught him the importance of letting go, after years of making up faces. Make up is about discipline and controlling how one looks. Fashion is about chasing the next season- the calendar does not wait according to Woo- time is a deadline. Dissecting time in fashion, he notes that on the surface fashion chases time, yet in reality it accumulates time. In his artworld work, Woo partners with the powerlessness of control, collaborating with gravity.
From Stalactite, to Ridge, to Afterlives. The latter is Woo’s next task, which is in the works. With Afterlives, Woo is opening up into Geological Love. It’s where the artwork will ask what algorithms cannot compute: Can love survive death? Can it still find you, across lifetimes?
Woo has published monographs that include Dimensions of Sedimentation, Stalactite - The Clamorous Stillness, and Finding My Way in Tibet, among others. The series, accompanied by a new philosophical art book, is scheduled for Spring 2028. It will premiere in Paris before traveling to other cities as part of an international touring exhibition.
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