Profiled: Rodney Evans

Profiled is a CreativeHunt column introducing the ouvres of artists living and working in Shanghai, or showing their work here in a forthcoming exhibition.

After four years of doing slick, sexy, commercial photography in China, Rodney Evans is shifting his focus. The Shanghai-based freelance photographer boasts an extensive CV populated by posh clients: Chivas, Wallpaper, Vogue China, Tommy Hilfiger and more. His portfolio is chock full of semi-nude women in contrived poses barely covering nipples and such. But when he’s not doing it for the money, Evans’ lens has been aimed at the common people, at play.

Rodney Evans’ solo exhibition “Postcard” opens at The Foundry this Thursday. The collection of images is the result of four years’ travel, and a fascination with the way the Chinese spend leisure time. Beckoning to the nascent anthropologist in all of us, his exhibition offers snippets of other people’s vacations and weekends – without any airbrushing.



With real, flawed, sometimes unsmiling people, and occasionally inclement weather, Evans’ “Postcards” are far more intriguing than the store-bought kind. The feeling is more like voyeurism, more like finding a stranger’s photos on a lost mobile phone.

Half the fun is guessing where the subject is (ice sculptures betray Harbin, for example). The other half is wondering: who the heck is this person and are they even having a good time?



Evans was born in Sydney in 1972, and also worked in New York. He first visited China in 2005, on assignment, and moved here that same year. You may have seen some of his photos of China’s youth culture in the Source Gallery. He also participated in the 2009 “Seagull Camera Exhibition” at The Factory. Lately, he says he has been “doing more production work and concentrating on my own work.”

Of all his projects in China, Evans in most proud to be currently building a new photo studio. “The walls are going up (mostly) in the right place,” he says. Evans is an Australian born in Sydney in 1972. Here’s his website



“Postcard” Solo Exhibition runs October 22 – November 29, at The Foundry, End of lane 729, Shanxi Bei Lu near Kangding Lu. Organized by Office 339.