Heman Chong

The Book Cover series

With a habit of reading eight to ten books at the same time, Chong paints his two-foot tall novel covers through referencing an extensive reading list (accessible on Facebook) he has kept since 2006. Entitled “Bibliography (1): The Lonely Ones,” the list outlines representations of solitude that has been imposed on individuals or communities. Chong divides these archetypes into three over-arching notions: the Hide-away, the Castaway and the Prisoner. A novella from Stephen King’s Different Seasons collection, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption tells a story of assumed identities and prisoners’ escape to reflect on the economic infrastructures inside and outside prison as well as the thin boundaries separating the two—in this case, a Rita Hayworth poster concealing a hole in the prison wall dug for jailbreak.