Gao Bo’s 高波 (born in Sichuan province in 1964) works have been pushing the boundaries of photography, painting and installation, while challenging the notions of disappearance, duality and sacrifice. He discovered his vocation after a first trip to Tibet in 1985, where he produced a series of candid portraits with two cameras he borrowed from his teacher and from a friend. Between 1985 and 1995 he embarked upon five journeys to Tibet, capturing street life, Buddhist monks and breathtaking landscapes.
Ten years after, Gao Bo conceived a new arrangement of these photographs. He went back to Tibet during the summer of 2009 in order to rework them by using his blood as ink as well as an automatical calligraphy he invented. Over the years, he has been increasingly reworking his photographs, covering them with thick layers of painting, adding pieces of fabric and wood, and even burning them. As the essayist and curator Alejandro Castellote writes: “All of Gao Bo’s work is a circular journey, a permanent cycle of leaving and returning.
