HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity Gallery: Painting On and On 5: Taciturn

 (10/25 – 11/23/2013)
HKICC website

A group exhibition of Au Hoi Lam, Gaylord Chan, Ko Sin Tung, Kong Chun Hei, Lee Kit, Liu Chun Kwong, Frank Vigneron and Wai Pong Yu. This show collected the best of a certain art scene in Hong Kong. The common denominator of the painting on show has been a great calmness and fragility of expression – minimal strokes, miniature precision, and quietness. Au Hoi Lam was the organizer of the exhibition and she showed older works pointing towards the moments in her career when she was searching for ways of expression. Gaylord Chan stood out from the rest with his colorful MS Paint prints, probably the most ‘violent’ works on display. Ko Sin Tung together with Kong Chun Hei were the youngest participants in the show. Ko Sin Tung’s works were photo prints with parts painted over, as if s/he was trying to find a color exactly matching the background, but failing each time – an intricate relation between the technically reproduced and painted image. Kong Chun Hei showcased his/her skills with miniature brushstrokes mimicking the effect of a wooden structure, painted on the canvas: Not a framed painting, but a painting of a frame. Lee Kit showed a few light colored paintings on plywood, very gentle, accompanied by some close to invisible interventions on the wall reserved for him. Lui Chun Kwong was the second oldest participant after Gaylord Chan. His striped paintings included a loose piece of cloth on the top, hiding a figurative motive. The paintings thus doubled as an abstract work, which at the same time contained a narrative seed in the form of a depiction of a concrete object. Frank Vigneron was the only non-Chinese participant of the show, his very detailed and large scale abstract calligraphies referred both to the proximity of painting and writing in Eastern cultures while linking it to abstract art of the west. Last one to mention, Wai Pong Yu, took the art of the line to the extreme, in a way similar to Kong Chun Hei: Minute brush strokes in miniature size where interacting with each other to create a feeling of incredible complexity emerging from the simplest forms.