Using coffee ground as a paint medium, Si Jie visualizes the complicated relationship between choice and the illusion or lack of choice and points to the unbalanced power between labor and consumption in our society.

The Malaysian coffee that Loo grew up drinking is sweet tasting and light brown. It is made from a lower grade coffee powder mixed with hot water and condensed milk. During colonial times, the British took the best quality coffee for exporting. The remnant of imperial power embodied in today’s global economy continues to enable the sale of higher-end Arabica coffee so that it can be enjoyed in other powerful and developed markets.

While making art is laborious and sometimes soul-baring, consuming art usually takes place in a clean, pristine, and often sterile white box by a privileged minority of wealthy clients. How we taste coffee serves as a metaphor for the profound difference between the elitist contemporary art connoisseur-ship and the cultural producers who supply it.