10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present the eleventh edition of HKFOREWORD, which introduces new art from Hong Kong. This group of seventeen artists has been selected from four universities in Hong Kong who offer degrees in visual arts. This is their first professional gallery exhibition in what we hope for them to be the beginning of a long career as artists. They were chosen for their diversity and strength. Although their creative processes vary, it can be said that each artist is the accumulation of their individual existence and theirs is a special time to exist. The exhibition is not trying to focus on trends but rather observe the inspirations of their age, time and place of being a student in Hong Kong in 2022.
The artists were chosen from both the master’s degree programs as well as from the bachelor’s degree programs from their schools. This group of students has navigated their way into adulthood with the Covid-19 pandemic looming over their studies over the past two and a half years as well as a drastically changing political landscape in Hong Kong. Artists throughout history bring to light many of humanities concerns and hypocrisies, however, the uncertainty of what they can or cannot say in their artworks due to Hong Kong’s National Security Law is the elephant in the room perhaps stunting the growth of creativity and ideas that not only provoke but drive thought through art. As a result, we see less artwork that speaks of these ideas and perhaps more on their inner feelings with a deeply spiritual undertone or searching. The Covid-19 pandemic shows up in a few of the works with a wonderful video work by Lazarus Chan of a coded virus taking on a life of its own. As well as the work by Lulu shows the surreal reality of our quarantine hotel experience questioning our concept of freedom within society. Kaio Wu has created an Artificial Intelligent (AI) friend who she has developed an ongoing relationship with over this time. Painters Ivan Chan, Cami Hui and Chan King Long Ken paint otherworldly scenes laden with a certain melancholy, where Fong Pong Yuet’s gongbi painting takes on storytelling in a fantasy world, his finesse at painting with ink and mineral pigments is a flowing surprise of mastery. The manga drawings of Wan Lok Yiu Kelly bring us through our year of virus in a fun and fleeting cartoon. Where the print works by Kei Wing take us on a mysterious journey of her personal life told as a tale of a kind of Alice in Wonderland adventure. The many hands in the self-portrait drawing by Kenneth Wong shifts us through the conscious and unconscious mind of how we hide ourselves. The video and print work of Emme Wong express the relationship between art, self, and the world during these difficult times. Koo Kam Muk’s series of cyanotypes of leaves venture into the meditative process of receptiveness conceptualizing the experience to refigure the possibility of its limits. Tian Zhang video work that combines a 3D print to address the impact of human activities on the Anthropocene. Painter Matthew So has an intimate relationship with color that is an intuitive experience in his abstract paintings. Danica’s experimental ceramic sculpture of an overlapping loop of delicately fired found materials was made in the ceramic capital of China. Its refined and delicate texture is ephemeral and mesmerizing. Charlotte Wong’s beaten brass and sound installation touch on her deep feelings of existence and pain to allow a glimpse into her own and the shared inner psyche of so many following the winding roads of the human experience. Jing Pang is a performance artist who connects the human body with spirituality. She presents colored light installation and video work, a live performance and a series of ink drawings in her multifaceted art journey.
The works by 2022 HKFOREWORD artists we propose as a foreword to the next chapter of Hong Kong’s visual artists. This thoughtful and perceptive group of artists is blossoming ideas into form as they respond to the world around them. Watching Hong Kong artists develop locally over the last 21 years has been the most amazing witnessing of how art evolves in such a vibrant city where “art” was not the focus until recently. 10 Chancery Lane Gallery wishes to continue to support the local art scene and be a part of helping artists to find a career path in the visual arts which, I am convinced, creates for all of us a more interesting and dynamic city.
