exhibition

Solo - New Paintings by Lam Tung Pang 2008


 

Exhibition until 18th October, 2008
Opening hours: (Mon-Fri) 10am – 6:30pm  (Sat) 10am – 6pm
Hanart T Z Gallery
202 Henley Building, 5 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong. 

T: 2526-9019   F: 2521-2001  www.hanart.com   tzchang@hanart.com

 
Lam Tung Pang graduated from the Fine Arts Department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He completed his MA at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London before winning the prestigious Hunting Art Prize: Young Artist of the Year Award in 2005. Lam is an active member of the “Fotanian” (artist village in Fotan, HK) and has just opened his new studio in Beijing in 2008. 
 
Lam painted on wood-board in the previous years as he is fascinated by the texture of the material and its reaction to paint. Recently he shifts to use canvas for his new series. Through applying a layer of special base medium, Lam turns the canvas to paper-like texture and more water absorbent. His brushstroke becomes more transparent and close to the style of watercolour.
 
Lam focuses on the theme of animal in his new series. In “Goodbye”, he depicts a polar bear leaving a modern city with tall buildings alighted with bulbs at night. The combination of polar bear and the city creates a strong sense of mismatch. “My Deer, Under Water!” shows a deer living on the seafloor, which is another example of disharmony between the subject and environment. Through this arrangement Lam expresses his own living experience and also his concern of the natural world. In “Timing” and “Fly”, Lam captures the most exciting moment of the animals. Time is another theme that Lam is studying now.
For more information please contact the gallery at 2526-9019.
 
      林東鵬2001年畢業於香港中文大學藝術系（文學士），2003年獲藝術發展局資助往英國聖馬丁藝術及設計學院修讀碩士。2005年在英國享町藝術家比賽中獲全年最佳年青藝術家獎, 並為該獎設立二十五年來首位獲獎華人。林東鵬是「伙炭藝術村」一名活躍份子，今年亦於北京開設新的工作室。
林東鵬過去幾年均多利用木板為繪畫創作的載體，他特別喜歡木紋和淡淡的顏料結合的感覺，然而他的新作卻選擇了畫布來探討新的個人繪畫語言，他用特別的塗料處理布面，令原來承托顏料力強的質地變為紙張般容易化水，筆觸因而產生如水彩般味道。
林東鵬的新作以動物為主題，「離開」描繪北極熊遊走於燈光通明的大都市，北極熊與現代文明的並存在視覺上產生了強烈的錯致感；另一幅作品「逐鹿水中」，畫中的鹿身處水底，同樣是主題與環境不協調的例子，林東鵬通過這種處理去表達個人生活經驗，還有對世界萬物的感懷和關注。「時機」中的孔雀開屏，「飛」中的展翅禽鳥，都停留令觀眾最投入的一瞬，時間性的選擇，成為林東鵬另一個希望探討的主題。
 

There is an ambivalence in Lam’s method of depicting images of wildlife staged in seemingly unusual environments. Painted in succession from the grizzly bear to the gibbon to the peacock, the strongly defined backdrop of urban landscape in the bear painting (Goodbye) fades away in the gibbon painting (Illusion), leaving only spots of light faintly surrounding the gibbon, an ambiguous clue for lit buildings in the distance. Unlike the first painting, where the creature and its surroundings are clearly defined from one another, the gibbon is rendered almost like its background, blurring the two elements and confusing subject with object.

 

The painting of the peacock (Timing) is a further investigation of man’s aggressive activities on nature, where the peacock can be seen as a clear representation of nature reacting towards the presence of man. The peacock has its plumage in full display, which may be a paradoxical result of attraction and self-defense directed towards the gaze of the viewer (man) himself. The feathers simultaneously look like vegetation in full bloom, while the “eyes” of the feathers recall the lights of the buildings depicted in the gibbon painting (Illusion), but are now much brighter, more strongly articulated and also harsher. In a sense, the peacock is a representation of the manmade fully immersed into a supposedly untouchable part of nature.

 

As with other paintings in this series, there is a poetic, almost cheery surface to the work yet there are also blatant signs that reflect a melancholic self-destructive environment in which these creatures inhabit. As is often with Lam’s work, the literal depiction of subject and object is perhaps secondary in its significance to the hidden metaphor that conveys the experiences of living as a human being in a world where consequences are often unavoidable and unpredictable. The presentation of this new series of paintings suggests the artist’s deliberation over such consequences and an inclination to leave things open-ended for our own interpretation.

 

Christine

 

 


Back