藝評
Love Simply (Fotan Artists’ Open Studios)
約翰百德 (John BATTEN)
at 5:53pm on 20th February 2009
Fo Tan’s current open studio weekends allow visitors to discover artist studios, small ad hoc shows, video installations and a few lightly curated exhibitions.
Love Simply is one of the better group exhibitions and organised by recent art graduate Tang Kwok Hin; an up-and-coming artist himself and a sensitive curator.
The exhibition has the feel of the similarly titled film, Love Actually – the movie is broken into separate scenes with each actor eventually playing out, almost, implausible encounters with each other. Likewise, the artists in this exhibition unconsciously overlap – as most studied together and know each other - around this most private, and often devastating, of emotions.
Gwen Chung Chin Man offers two paintings in the form of a wall diary of written words and random images that document the pain of her decision to break up with a much-loved long-term boyfriend, the regret associated with that decision and the failure to re-start the relationship due his ‘moving on’.
Lui Long Tin with ‘The Kiss of Metaphysics’ (pictured: detail of painting) uses a seemingly odd example: her own orthodontic treatment. By improving her own appearance, Lui argues that being attractive will allow mankind – with the help of love and its reproductive capacities - to continue.
Michael Lee Hong Hwee offers a cerebral exploration in his ‘Foundations: the Consolations of Museology’ book project, of which the short companion DVD 'Hinterlands' is shown in this exhibition. The viewer watches scenes and a dialogue of a couple, on the verge of breaking up, making a final trip together and visiting ten museums, “each of which”, as the artist explains, “consoles humans of their weaknesses: unpopularity…ugliness…messiness…cowardice… (etc).”
Lastly, Tang Kwok Hin exhibits a photograph of filial tradition: the re-painting of his grandmother’s gravestone in red and its yearly expression of love simply.
Exhibition: 《Love Simply》
Date:10,11,17 & 18.1.2009
Venue: Hang Fat Studio, Unit 21, 4/F, Block A, Wah Luen Industrial Centre, 15-21 Wong Chuk Yeung Street, Fo Tan, N.T.
Website: www.fotanian.com
Love Simply is one of the better group exhibitions and organised by recent art graduate Tang Kwok Hin; an up-and-coming artist himself and a sensitive curator.
The exhibition has the feel of the similarly titled film, Love Actually – the movie is broken into separate scenes with each actor eventually playing out, almost, implausible encounters with each other. Likewise, the artists in this exhibition unconsciously overlap – as most studied together and know each other - around this most private, and often devastating, of emotions.
Gwen Chung Chin Man offers two paintings in the form of a wall diary of written words and random images that document the pain of her decision to break up with a much-loved long-term boyfriend, the regret associated with that decision and the failure to re-start the relationship due his ‘moving on’.
Lui Long Tin with ‘The Kiss of Metaphysics’ (pictured: detail of painting) uses a seemingly odd example: her own orthodontic treatment. By improving her own appearance, Lui argues that being attractive will allow mankind – with the help of love and its reproductive capacities - to continue.
Michael Lee Hong Hwee offers a cerebral exploration in his ‘Foundations: the Consolations of Museology’ book project, of which the short companion DVD 'Hinterlands' is shown in this exhibition. The viewer watches scenes and a dialogue of a couple, on the verge of breaking up, making a final trip together and visiting ten museums, “each of which”, as the artist explains, “consoles humans of their weaknesses: unpopularity…ugliness…messiness…cowardice… (etc).”
Lastly, Tang Kwok Hin exhibits a photograph of filial tradition: the re-painting of his grandmother’s gravestone in red and its yearly expression of love simply.
Exhibition: 《Love Simply》
Date:10,11,17 & 18.1.2009
Venue: Hang Fat Studio, Unit 21, 4/F, Block A, Wah Luen Industrial Centre, 15-21 Wong Chuk Yeung Street, Fo Tan, N.T.
Website: www.fotanian.com