Bio

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Born and raised in Beijing, China, Damon Hou is a fashion artist and photographer currently working and living in Los Angeles, California. Hou graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts (2020) and from the New York Film Academy with a degree in Master of Fine Arts in Photography (2022).

Hou’s practice explores W.E.B Du Bois' idea of double consciousness to reconcile his two disparate social identities living in a white-dominated society that devalues Chinese Asians through exclusion, yet at the same time pays lip service to equality, diversity, and dignity. Expanding both physically and psychologically, Hou tries to integrate into American culture as a Chinese immigrant.  

He’s work surveys the myriad forms of masculinity that are experienced in mainstream media in order to destabilize the myths of modern masculinity. His images reinvent the Western aesthetic,  disrupt traditional representations of gender and sexuality, and most importantly, tell the world his authentic narrative of Chinese ethnicity, full of nuance and riches. Hou's work embraces a variety of media, including photography, collage, and sculpture, to best suit his ideas of self-expression in art.

Hou employs the language of fashion photography, challenging the reductive sense of self that is mass produced in the discourse of multiculturalism. For Hou, fashion means the embodiment of freedom, the declaration of independence, and the beauty of diversity. Fashion, an unfixed performative art, is his tool of choice with which to shape and express his identity. Our bodies belong to us; clothing and accessories become important empowering tools for self-expression in our hands.