Preston Hartwick is a visual artist living in Hong Kong. With photography as his primary medium, his work frequently takes the form of long-term investigations of his surrounding landscape and its continuous reshaping through natural and human intervention.
His ongoing project, Hong Kong Aesthetic, is a decade-long counter archive of Hong Kong’s undocumented design — the colors, textures, and patterns that comprise the city’s underlying visual fabric.
Preston was selected as a featured artist for the Inter-Island Festival 2023, where he designed an installation re-interpreting the controversial Lantau Tomorrow Vision reclamation project as a figment of a failed technocratic fantasy.
He self-published his first photobook, Bela Vista, in 2021, chronicling six years of observing the interplay between ocean, people, and animals contained within the field of view from a single window overlooking the beach.
Before this, Preston’s photography and sculptural installations have been featured in multiple exhibitions across Hong Kong. He has an intense love for analog photography and can usually be found in his darkroom experimenting with historical photographic processes.
email: preston.hartwick@gmail.com
About
November 2023
Lantau Tomorrow (magazine), Asia Art Archive online collection, Hong Kong
August 2021
Bela Vista (photobook), Self-published, Hong Kong
Publications
November 2023
AI (Artificial Islands) (digital art, installation), 'Inter-Island Festival 2023' - Feature Project, Hong Kong
November 2023
Navigating Utopia (workshop), 'Inter-Island Festival 2023', Hong Kong
November 2023
InTUNE? (photographic installation), 'Inter-Island Festival 2023', Hong Kong
April 2023
Bela Vista (photobook), 'Tai Kwun Contemporary's BOOKED Hong Kong Art Book Fair 2023', Hong Kong
August 2021
Bela Vista (photography), ‘Portal’, Hong Kong
Three Poems by Yuan Mei (short film), ‘Portal’, Hong Kong
November 2017
Cheung Chau Aesthetic (photography), Valor, Hong Kong
November 2017
La Mer (installation), ‘Life by Water’, Hong Kong
December 2015
Anagnorisis (photography), ‘Guest Host Ghost’, Hong Kong
Inkblots (photography), ‘Guest Host Ghost’, Hong Kong
Gather (installation), ‘Guest Host Ghost’, Hong Kong
Exhibitions & Workshops
November 2023
South China Morning Post article on Inter-Island Festival 2023
June 2021
South China Morning Post article on Cheung Chau Wave exhibition
April 2019
Interview with UMag, Issue 699
December 2017
South China Morning Post article on Guest, Host, Ghost exhibition