iPRECIATION Hong Kong

iPRECIATION Hong Kong is proud to present a group exhibition of four Hong Kong local artists- Tse Yim On, Hung Keung, Ho Yuen Leung and Au Ka Wai, featuring their latest creations done between 2011 to 2012. Graduated from the Fine Arts Department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the arts education in college years were an enlightening experience to all four of them. Each individual later developed artworks that penetrate a variety of issues and themes. This time four of them join hands once again for the current exhibition, engage in four distinct media in conveying their yearning for the good old days before radical changes took place in their hometown.

Tse Yim On obtained his Bachelor (honors) and Master of Fine Arts degrees, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1998 and 2001 respectively. In 1998, Tse won the Urban Council Award of Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition right after his graduation. He was invited as the Art Advisor and Examiner of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and held visual-arts related teaching positions at a numbers of tertiary institutions in Hong Kong and Mainland China.
Tse’s artworks are collected by the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and have been featured worldwide, at exhibitions and art fairs in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Britain and Israel.
Though rich in political irony, with a colourful, twisted flair, beneath the façade of Tse’s animae-inspired world lies a sensitivity, disquiet, towards the rapid progression of his hometown. His quirky, humorous expression of vulgar culture, through such comical means, is even more astounding, and distinctive. In his recent works, Tse revisits the imagery of Hong Kong’s public housing, a trademark familiar amongst the Hong Kong public; the neighborhoods were filled with spirit and values of a community,  once culturally diverse and vibrant. However the good old memories are long gone, what remains is a fairy tale, as if the Queen’s pier could only be a part of our fond memories.

Hung marked his presence in the international art scene since 1995 through his active participation in numerous overseas exhibitions and academic activities.
Garnered awards local and worldwide, Hung is the award winner for Hong Kong Arts Development Awards: Award for Best Artist (Media Arts) in 2010, and Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards: Achievement Awards in 2009. He also received various international new-media arts awards in countries include Britain, Germany, Croatia and Greece.
In 2004, HUNG Keung founded innov+media lab (imhk lab) in exploring the creative possibilities in new media art and design. Hung’s digital media work featured in the current exhibition brings to audience 12 unique identities embodied in one single character. The fragmented imageries move and pause in dissected screens, leading us to wander through the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei, where the mingling of old and new structures testify the rapid changes of our city.

Ho Yuen Leung attended The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and obtained the Bachelor in Fine Arts degree there in 1995, in the same year he received the Ramon Woon Creative Prize. In 2002, he further completed the Fine Arts Master degree at his alma mater.
Ho now concentrates most of his time in sculpture creations, while actively engages in arts education at the same time. He is experienced in the execution of public art projects, in Hong Kong, his large-scale creations can be seen at Youth Square completed in 2011, the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade and public space outside the International Financial Centre in Central. In past years Ho was frequently invited >to participate in art residency programmes organized by schools and various organizations.
In recent years, the artist has been focusing on the re-workings of his previous art pieces. After repeated fine-tunings, his sculptures are transformed into forms that could hardly stand on their own; their volume is drastically reduced and become strikingly narrow, long, small and slender, bearing resemblance of 2-dimensional lines and surfaces.
The wood sculptures featured in the exhibition bear smooth and clean contours, yet their extreme forms give an illusion of being on the verge of falling and breaking, as if viewers have to hold their breath lest their slightest movements will cause the works to collapse.

Au Ka Wai obtained his Bachelor & Master of Fines Arts degrees, from the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, and Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, in 1996 and 2000 respectively. In 1995, when Au was still pursuing studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he held his inaugural solo exhibition at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and was invited to organize another solo show the next year. Right upon graduation, his works were featured at the Hong Kong Museum of Art three times in 2 consecutive years. The Fine Arts award winner at the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial in 1996, Au also won the Vermont Studio Center Freeman Fellowship, USA in 2002.
The artist uses one single material- paper in his latest creations. Layers after layers, the paper is being torn and transformed. Au’s works not only bring the versatility of paper into full play, their forms also convey the interrelation between painting and sculptural space. The repeated use of a single element reveals the artist’s attentiveness and absorption for his works, while unfold in the compressed space is the traces of a repetitive creation process, all done by a pair of bare yet artistic hands. In Au’s works, imageries of the Hong Kong local streets are made visible pieces by pieces, as a record of his ordinary days in town.