Skip to Main Content
Start main Content

Ling U

Ling U

Ling U

Ling U

Ling U

Transcending the Gongbi Tradition: Contemporary Hong Kong Fine-Brush Painters

26/04/2022|Archive
VISUAL STUDIES Image ALT

Transcending the Gongbi Tradition : Contemporary Hong Kong Fine-Brush Painters


- A showcase of 9 Hong Kong gongbi artists, 31 paintings

The Rotunda, Exchange Square, Central
opens daily 10:00-19:00
runs through 22 May 2022

Curated by Dr CHEN Fong-fong
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Studies

Transcending the Gongbi Tradition: Contemporary Hong Kong Fine-Brush Painters is the first major exhibition of recent work by contemporary Hong Kong painters who employ gongbi (fine-brush) techniques. Featuring both established and emerging artists (listed in alphabetical order by surname), including Chan Kwan-lok, Sam Cheng, Cherie Cheuk Ka-wai, Eunice Cheung Wai-man, Barbara Choi Tak-yee, Lai Kwan-ting, Jess Leung Lai-man, Joey Leung Ka-yin, and Wilson Shieh, this exhibition encompasses a wide array of subject matter that stems from traditional landscape (shanshui), bird-and-flower, animal, figure, and architectural (jiehua) genres. This show invites the viewer to look solely and intensely at gongbi painting – its materials, techniques, aesthetics, and spirit. In these paintings, the traditional brush and ink, xuan paper and silk, linear forms and rhythms, multiple layers of ink and colour, and delicate, meticulous treatments are blended with contemporary objects, figures, buildings, and everyday life. Because these painters’ practices engage with the city around them using a medium with roots in antiquity, the works presented here manifest a linkage between the traditional and the contemporary.

Though the participating artists were professionally trained in this historical mode, their artworks assert variation within tradition, and their individual styles have a decidedly contemporary quality that opens new aesthetic vistas and invites meditative viewing. By exploring the spiritual and contemplative qualities that underpin gongbi techniques and materials and placing the art within the context of intergenerational developments in Hong Kong ink art, this exhibition enriches our understanding of Hong Kong art, contemporary ink art, and Chinese art history.

A virtual display and an e-catalogue are available via the following link:
https://lnkd.in/guiRxq8R

Gongbi painting demonstration by LAI Kwan-ting (video)
https://youtu.be/JazGIvo2M6o

Gongbi painting demonstration by Cherie CHEUK Ka-wai (video)
https://youtu.be/rHLZdP5d7nQ