10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present Hong Kong artist Lewis Lee in a solo exhibition entitled “The Tale of Beas River” at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. The exhibition consists of a new series of paintings and an installation of relics to commemorate the historical legacy of the Hong Kong-China borderland that runs along the Beas River.
Lewis Lee is an artist who is tied to the geographical stories of land and its connected meanings. He grew up in Hong Kong’s Sheung Shui area near the Hong Kong–Mainland China border. He grew up watching the buildings of the now megapolis of Shenzhen emerge out of the landscape viewed from the rural borderlands on the Hong Kong side. Like many Hong Kongers, he is the son of a mainland Chinese immigrant. His father arrived in 1980 crossing through the barbed wire at Ta Kwu Ling, the starting point of his life thereafter. Lee likes to roam the hinterlands of Hong Kong’s border area reimagining the landscapes as a part of Hong Kong history and how the idea of being a “Hong Konger” emerged after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China when the British colonial government established a border prohibited area in 1951, creating a barrier similar to the Berlin Wall. Formally isolating the people of both regions with a serpentine river serves as a natural barrier, separating opposing ideologies in the air. The concept of "Hong Konger" began to take shape from that moment.
The exhibition combines paintings and various found object installations, merging real and fabricated "historical relics," creating a space in the bustling streets of Central that blurs the line between reality and fiction, reflecting the current environmental situation in Hong Kong through a romantic pastoral lens.
One of the paintings has the number 51 entitled “Gondolier” which is taken from the first diesel locomotive brought to Hong Kong in 1955. Locomotive No. 51 went on to pull passenger trains for the next 28 years, serving gallantly until 1983 when the passenger service of the Kowloon-Canton Railway switched to full electrification. This train also shuttled his father back and forth between Hong Kong and China.
The work “From Dawn to Dusk” portrays a Hong Kong water buffalo grazing along the river leading up to Shenzhen's sprawling skyline. Ominous balloons in the air carry imagined propaganda from across the borders towards Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a world of contrasts, a modern megapolis dwarfed by the even larger and growing faster megacity of Shenzhen, just beyond, competing for growth and power.
In the 1990s, Shenzhen was still farmland. The speed with which it has emerged is mind-blowing. The population of Hong Kong is 7.5 million and Shenzhen is now 13 million. Lee’s paintings seem to skip along the countryside capturing a precious moment in time of a lost land that exists between competing supercities, where water buffalo roam and rivers flow. A land that might soon disappear.
ABOUT LEWIS LEE
Lewis Lee (born 1998, Hong Kong) is a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts in 2023. His works reflect on the stories of his life and his family’s journey. Lee grew up between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. He uses landscape painting to express his personal experiences of his family and his ancestry. Through his work, he responds to the scars left by previous generations, exploring identity and constructing his own worldview in a playful yet surreal manner. His past works have encompassed painting, photography, installation, and artificial landscapes. Lee is the winner of Grotto Fine Art Award 2023.
Lewis Lee (born 1998, Hong Kong) is a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts in 2023. His works reflect on the stories of his life and his family’s journey. Lee grew up between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. He uses landscape painting to express his personal experiences of his family and his ancestry. Through his work, he responds to the scars left by previous generations, exploring identity and constructing his own worldview in a playful yet surreal manner. His past works have encompassed painting, photography, installation, and artificial landscapes. Lee is the winner of Grotto Fine Art Award 2023.
ABOUT 10 CHANCERY LANE GALLERY
Established in 2001, when Hong Kong’s art scene was burgeoning, Katie de Tilly started 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. Along the back wall of the, then running, Victoria Prison, now the buzzing Tai Kwun Heritage and Cultural site, the little walking lane opened into a gallery specializing in contemporary art from the Asia-Pacific. Over the past 23 years, 10 Chancery Lane has worked with some of the region’s great artists, curators, and museums. The gallery’s motto still stands: “We are committed to giving a breath of fresh air to the Hong Kong art scene by bringing works that can expand horizons, open minds, and view the world, and life in general, through varying eyes, ideas, and souls. Art is not just decoration for our walls but a connection with our deep inner selves and the world around us.”
