The Sleepwalker:
Kacey Wong reminds Hong Kong people to take time to reflect on how life should be, through his award-winning artwork.
Car compartment:
Lai Kwan-ting captures MTR passengers in a life-size set of three hanging scrolls
Life lesson:
Stanley Wong made a sofa and coffee table that can be converted into a coffin, to encourage positive thinking.
Award-winning art imitates life
November 17, 2013
Nearly 100 art works selected from almost 1,000 entries are on display at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, as part of the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Awards exhibition. Three artists relate their creations’ meaning, each of which, in one way or another, reflects Hong Kong life.
Visitors may pause with wrinkled brow, and say, “Huh?” when they see Kacey Wong’s Sleepwalker. The red wrought iron thingamajig on coasters with wheels and pulleys looks rather like a combined bunk bed and tricycle, which makes its creator’s message clear.
“In the city, everybody has to work, every day we must work, and must work all the time. I don’t really like that,” Mr Wong explained.
“I think the kind of living and production, always pushing forward, is to the point that you are kind of out of control. So the bed is kind of like a machine, and once you put your body in there, you are supposed to be resting, but actually your body is out of control - and you are working.”
Through his work, he wants to remind Hong Kong people to take some time to reflect on how life should be, and not to let the city control us and work dominate our lives.
Alone together
More than two million passengers ride on the trains in Hong Kong every day, underscoring the “mass” in Mass Transit Railway. Artist Lai Kwan-ting captured half a dozen of them who were sitting opposite her in her work,
Car Compartment, a life-size set of three hanging scrolls.
Though the six people are seated close together, each appears lost in a world of their own, neither looking at nor speaking to the others.
“I was interested in these people’s state of mind. I captured their movements and expressions in the sketchbook I always carry with me. I wondered whether they know each other. If they did, why weren’t they talking?” Ms Lai said.
The portraits are done in traditional Gongbi style, which requires meticulous precision and attention to detail - and a great deal of patience. After she made the sketch, she outlined the drawing using brushes and ink, a process that took seven painstaking hours.
Traditional Gongbi paintings are often done in black and white, but Ms Lai deliberately chose to add colour.
“I wanted to build a stronger bond with reality. I want to give an impression of a real person sitting in front of the audience,” she said.
Facing the inevitable
It is difficult not to pause for thought at artist Stanley Wong’s installation,
Impermanence 2009. It has two main parts: a three-seater sofa with coffee table, and a padded coffin with a lid.
The artist, who uses the alias “anothermountainman”, wanted to use everyday items to express himself.
“We do so many things, and own so many things throughout our lives. Yet, at the end of our life, the object closest to our body is a wooden box called a coffin - which played no earlier role in our lives whatsoever. It is incomplete and illogical,” he said.
In developing his installation, he searched for an object that people use every day, until the last day of their lives. He wanted to be able to turn it into a coffin to use as the body’s final resting place. The answer was the sofa which easily converts into a casket.
“Imagine that you are sitting on your future coffin every day. It means that the idea of death lingers in your mind every day. It is hard to say death is far away. You can never tell. I believe that we should always stay positive. At least, do the very best you can while you’re alive, today.”
To ponder the meaning of art - and life, and death - visit the Contemporary Art Awards 2012 exhibition. It runs until January 5 at the Museum of Art.
Click
here for details.
