17 July – 5 September 2015
Opening Friday, 17 July 2015, 6 – 9 pm
Gallery EXIT 3/F, 25 Hing Wo Street, Tin Wan, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Hours: Tue – Sat, 11 am – 6 pm
*Guided Tour starts at 6:30 pm with artist and curator on the exhibition opening.
Chris HUEN Sin Kan, The Arrival
2015, oil on canvas, 140 x 180 cm
Gallery EXIT is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by local artist Chris HUEN Sin Kan, Out of The Ordinary. Out of The Ordinary is the extension of A Life in The Temporary, his first solo exhibition with the gallery, which will reflect the artist’s more recent and elaborate contemplation on the existential “gaze” in a deeper level.
Austerity of HUEN’S lifestyle in Hong Kong is how he poises himself immune to the bustle of this kaleidoscopic, dazzling metropolis. The artist steers his own way and lives a hermit-like, unobtrusive, modest life. Hasty pace, cacophonous society – these are never the subject matter in HUEN’s works. Totally immersed in his own art, to HUEN, life is sometimes a hotbed for inspiration; sometimes it itself becomes the materials in his works. Every subject matter in his works has to be filtered from his very own experiences, witnessed by his very own eyes.
Oil painting is the major medium in HUEN’s works. To him, the act of painting is the most intimate state to “gazing” by unfolding experiences per se filtered through a subjective mind. By repetitive examination, meditation and selection of materials, the artist re-enacts the paramount and deeply poignant moments through painting as the continuum of quotidian life. No draft, no repetitive revision, no dilatoriness, every work is a composition of clear strokes purely driven by spontaneity.
Simple and tranquil landscape is always durable to the eyes of appreciation. Springtime, shade of trees, these are all the plain but magnificent moments. Not ostentatious, not extravagant, not esoteric, not snobbish – HUEN’s concern is solely to reveal the marrow of things in themselves. Standing in front of the large-scale paintings from Chris HUEN, every spectator is travelled back to the scene of everyday life and is driven to re-think, with serenity, the quintessence of reality.
