Despite the digital age, I still cherish traditional media.While I embrace the unparalleled aura brought by the touch and texture of real acrylic paints, I experience and explore this vast and complicated world with my own eyes and ears. On the other hand, I am also fortunate to live in an era that allows me to travel to any periods in history and any places in the world through the internet. This time machine in broad sense has enabled me to paint from life across time and space. I disassemble and reassemble all things and phenomena in the universe to make colourful paintings to show you the wonderful world.

在數碼時代，我仍舊珍視傳統媒介，擁抱實體塑膠彩的質感與肌理所帶來，無取代的光暈氛圍，同時又會親身去耳聞目睹當下的大千世界；另一方面，我亦有幸趕上互聯網這廣義的時光機，能夠穿梭古今中外，突破時空界限去寫生，將森羅萬象以解拆重構的方式，展現一幅幅色彩斑斕的美好世界。

 

With the experience of creating commission works of portraits over the last decade, I started to paint the cultural icons who dominated my teenage and young adulthood, included but not limited to visual artists, comic writers, local superstars, alternative music members etc, as well as disassembled their background stories, and reassembled them onto the canvas.

借用過去十多年創作肖像委託作品的經驗，我開始繪畫一眾影響我成長的文化偶像，包括但不限於視覺藝術家、漫畫作家、香港巨星、另類音樂成員，並將他們背後的故事解拆，繼而重構於畫布上。

 

In 2014, a phenomenon occurred in the cyber world due to the effects of social circumstances: many Hong Kong people changed the profile pictures for their social media accounts from portraits to four-character slogans to show their attitude. The square arrangement of a four-character slogan in the profile picture, which was preset to the square aspect ratio in different social media, reminded me of seal carving in traditional Chinese art.

As such, the Hong Kong Seal series attempts to combine the visual experience from the present world with tradition: using cadmium red instead of zhu sha (vermilion cinnabar) and computer fonts instead of the seal script; adopting traditional Chinese typesetting to arrange words vertically from upper right to lower left; adding paintings. Same as the previous works, this series continues to employ the technique of disassemble and reassemble to create associations which will be combined with various images to produce the effects of Differance to the symbols and let the artist and the viewers to communicate by misreading.

This series leads the viewers into their own labyrinth of symbols, where they will get lost occasionally and discover fun in various junctions rather than playing the same old game of “letting the viewer solve the puzzles from the questions by the author”.

2014年，受社會情況影響，網絡世界出現了一個現像：很多香港人都將自己社交媒體的個人頭像，從人像轉為四字詞語的口號，用以表達立場。由於不同社體頭像的預設比例都是正方形，各頭像的四字詞都是以方形排列，令我聯想起傳統中國藝術中的篆刻。

因此，「香港印章」系列，是嘗試將當下的視覺經驗與傳統結合：以Cadmium red medium取代朱砂、電腦字體取代篆書，將文字以傳統中文的順序右上左下直排，加入繪畫。另一方面，跟過去的創作無異，繼續以解拆重構的聯想方式，加入不同的圖像，讓符號自行產延異(Differance)，讓創作者及觀眾以誤讀的方式溝通。

與其說玩弄「作者開題，觀眾解謎」的古老遊戲，不如說帶引觀眾進入各自的符號迷宮，再偶爾迷路，迷路間在各自的分叉路拾趣。

 

So, Mongkok Culture actually refers to a fusion of people, affairs and things from the old and the new, the high and the low, the wicked and the virtuous. If you scamp through the buildings which vary greatly in building age in the district, you will find the upscale shopping mall Langham Place adjacent to Reclamation Street, which is a grassroots marketplace for building materials and hardware, and Portland Street, where vice dens is full to the brim. The luxurious residence 8 Waterloo Roadis situated at the junction of Temple Street, where the good and the bad co-exist. There are both culturally rich second-floor bookshops and declining fourth-floor sei chai (pirated hardcore pornography video discs) shops. There are also such vogue places for the youth as Sino Centre and in’s Point as well as Ho Mong Kok Shopping Centre, which is a hub for philatelists and numismatists ……

I attempted to create the Mongkok Library series to exhibit, through books of different subjects and tastes as well as interaction with different readers, the fascinating collective memory of Hong Kong, the Greater China, Southeast Asia and the world in this unreal library.

所謂旺角文化，是融合了嶄新與老舊、高尚與低俗、黑暗與清白的人、事、物：穿梭於區內樓齡相距三、五十年的大廈，可發現高檔消費商場朗豪坊，跟草根的三行五金市場新填地街，以及色情場所林立的砵蘭街比鄰；高尚屋苑窩打老道8號坐落黑白共生的廟街街頭；既有文藝氣息豐厚的二樓書店，亦有明日黃花的四樓四仔（四級盜版色情光碟）；有最富年青氣息的信和中心、in’s Point，又有郵票錢幣收藏家聚腳的好旺角購物中心……

因此，我嘗試發展《旺角圖書館》系列，透過這間現實不存在的圖書館，選取不同範疇與品味的書本，以及跟不同的閱書人的相互碰撞，來展現香港、大中華、東南亞，以至世界的奇妙集體記憶。

 

It is all about the game of disassembling and reassembling of images.

I was fortunate enough to be born in Hong Kong in the 1970s and so witnessed the dramatic changes in the city: After the 1967 Leftist Riots, Britain reorganised the colonial policy towards Hong Kong. A series of policy reforms was pushed forward through the hands of the Hong Kong Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, which opened the chapter of prosperity in Hong Kong.

Notwithstanding that there was a massive outflow of talents amidst the wave of immigration from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the Pearl of the Orient remained prosper and “Hongkongers” continued to be an identity people were so proud of after a series of policies to stablise political circles and the business sector by the last Governor, Chris Patten.

Later in the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong experienced political turmoil and significant economic fluctuations. Hong Kong people even had a different thought on their ethnic identity.

In the past few decades, Hong Kong has nourished numerous valuable cultures like a magic city. Hong Kong people who once considered themselves as passers-by have become successful after unremitting efforts in this promised land, even though sometimes they switched to passers-by again. In broad sense, Hong Kong is like a miracle stage full of magical power, which happened to meet the definition of having the element of magic in a fairy tale.

Growing up in this period, I was inevitably under the influence of these. I have been using the local culture of Hong Kong as well as the local people, affairs and things as the themes in most of my works since I studied in the Department of Fine Arts of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in the 1990s.

Apart from recalling the “beautiful world” in the past, my works also pay compliments to things which I try best to identify as adorable and worth cherishing in the contemporary world of today. Images and texts are disassembled and reassembled into pieces of modern poems of Hong Kong.

都是意像的解拆與重構遊戲。

有幸生於七十年代的香港，見證了香港的戲劇性轉變：六七暴動之後，英國重整對香港的殖民地政策，借香港總督麥理浩爵士之手，推行一系列政策改革，奏起了香港繁華的序章。

雖有八十年代末、九十年代初的移民潮，大量人才外流，但末代港督彭定康的一系列穩定政、商政策，東方之珠的繁華依舊，讓「香港人」持續成為可堪自豪的身份認同。

之後的97主權移交，香港政治經濟經歷了大幅起落，甚至令香港人對自己身份認同，產生了不同的感覺。

回首數十年，香港像一個魔法城市，孕育了無數的珍貴文化；原為過客的香港人都在此福地化蛹成蝶，偶爾又變回過客⋯⋯宏觀來說， 就像一個充滿魔法的舞台，恰好乎合了童話(Fairy tale) 必須有魔法元素的定義。

成長於此間的我，自然受此影響，從九十年代中入讀中文大學藝術系開始，直到現在，創作題材都大部分圍繞香港的本土文化，以及本土的人、事、物。而我的創作亦不止於懷緬過去的「美好世界」，同時也在今天的世道當中，努力找尋可愛、可珍惜的事物予以頌讚，將不同的意象及文本解拆，繼而重組成一幅幅的香港新詩。

 

Perhaps you may classify my commissioned works as Community arts or, to be more precise, Dialogical art?

I come into contact with different lifestyles and tastes from my patrons in the course of my interviews with them, through which I also come to know how different people perceive art and what different people want from art. Nevertheless, my clients all know very well the style of my works before they make their commission. During the long period of creation (at least two months), I can gradually guide them how to appreciate art and what to appreciate in art in our discussions:

-how would strong and vibrant acrylic colours resonate with the visual experience of people in the contemporary world;
-what are the effects of changes in light and shadow brought about by the overlap of transparent colours in our retina;
-how would the smart use of colour chroma add imaginary spatial and depth to no-vanishing point composition;
-how would two dimensional montage-like-juxtaposition complement with vibrant colour saturation; and
-how would a simplified form strike a balance between resemblance in appearance and resemblance in spirit.

My clients witnessed the history of their personal life, their beloved ones and the things they cherished in the course of my creation. All of them are disassembled, and then reassembled on canvases.

我的委託作品，或許可歸類作Community arts，或精準一點的Dialogical art?

跟物主的訪談過程，客人讓我接觸到不同生活，不同的品味，亦讓我明白不同人們對藝術的理解，以及不同的要求。然而，客人們都是清楚知道我的作品風格，才作出委託。所以在漫長（ 兩個月起） 的創作期間， 跟客人的協商過程，可逐漸引導他們欣賞繪畫的訣竅：

- 塑膠彩強烈的色彩跳動跟當代人們視覺經驗的共鳴之處；
- 透明色彩的堆疊，在觀眾視網膜產生的光影變化；
- 靈巧的彩度運用如何增加無消失點構圖的幻象空間深度；
- 彩度如何配合平面圖層的蒙太奇穿插，增強空間的躍動；
- 簡化的造型如何在型似與神似之間取得平衡

創作過程讓客人見證了他們的個人歷史、所愛之人、珍視之物，一一被解拆，繼而重構於畫布上。