We are pleased to share that FQM artist Yau Wing Fung's works have been featured in the two-year Exhibition Series in the Greater Bay Area titled Ink Art Ensembles.
Ink Art Ensembles - Exhibition Series in the Greater Bay Area has officially opened on September 24 at the Shenzhen Art Museum (New Venue) and will run until November 6. As the first stop of this series, the exhibition centers around the theme “New Dynamics of Qi Yun,” offering a vibrant dialogue between contemporary ink art and other forms of contemporary artistic expressions from the Greater Bay Area. Co-curated by renowned Hong Kong designer and curator Gao Shaokang and Shenzhen designer Zhu Decai, this series promises to be a significant cultural event. Spanning from 2024 to 2026, this exhibition series is set to host five exhibitions across four cities in the Greater Bay Area – Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan, and Dongguan. Launched in 2021, this initiative aims to shine a spotlight on the works of artists from the Greater Bay Area, inviting the community to engage with and appreciate contemporary artistic exploration. Ink Art Ensembles not only provides opportunities for artistic exchange and collaboration within the Greater Bay Area but also immerses audiences in the distinctive allure of contemporary ink art.
This Greater Bay Area Art Exhibition Series features works from eight ink artists, including FQM artist Yau Wing Fung, who delves into innovative approaches in ink art, exploring new concepts, materials, and techniques. The exhibition features a diverse array of forms, ranging from traditional painting, textile, and lacquerware to multimedia installations and paper sculptures, highlighting the rich artistic and cultural allure of ink art in the Greater Bay Area. Among the featured works are two pieces by Yau Wing Fung, Intergradation and Meta 2.
Meta-2, 2023, 水墨設色紙本 Ink and colour on paper, 一組八件 Set of 8 42 × 62 cm each
Meta 2 is part of the artist's Meta series. Another work from this series, Meta 3, was exhibited early this Feburary at Fu Qiumeng Fine Art in New York. In this series, Yau explores creativity in traditional landscape painting within repetitiveness by employing more than eight different styles to depict the same scenery, enriching the imagination of time and space. With each variation, the growing proficiency draws the artist closer to the landscapes, allowing his current state of mind to engage with the timeless essence of the Chinese landscape art tradition. This process creates a dynamic interplay between subject and object, where landscape imagery and the artist’s self enter a compelling state of tension.
擺渡 Intergradation, 2023, 水墨設色紙本（一組兩件）、風化木, Ink and colour on paper (set of two), weathered wood , 紙本每件 120 x 60 cm each
Intergraduation is an installation work composed of two works on paper, alongside a piece of weathered wood. The initial inspiration for this piece stems from the artist's journey to Tung Ping Chau, an island near Hong Kong, from which he brought back a piece of driftwood. Yau chose rubbing as the technique for the two paper works, drawn to its inherent qualities of commemoration, recording, and communication. Using sandpaper, the artist meticulously ground details of the island and the driftwood into the ink background on the paper. Each grinding mark engaged with the ink, resulting in a dynamic interplay that created a co-existence and overlap between the states of "disappearance" and "emergence." These scratches reflect the artist's emotional fluctuations, capturing variations in intensity, speed, and rhythm, which mirror his deep understanding of "bimo (traditional Chinese brush and ink)." Through thoughtfully arranged compositions, Yau’s renderings of islands, sea, and driftwood vividly convey natural scenes to viewers. The incorporation of weathered wood fosters an engaging dialogue between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements, effectively recreating the nature embedded in the artist’s memory. The work transcends the limits of time and space, inviting viewers to experience expansive landscapes within a confined setting, while simultaneously reflecting Yau Wing Fung's exploration of new perspectives on landscape viewing.
This exhibition is taking place at the new venue of the Shenzhen Art Museum and will be on view until November 6. We warmly invite everyone to explore Yau Wing Fung’s investigation of the temporal and spatial aesthetics inherent in Chinese landscape painting. Stay tuned with the upcoming exhibitions in the Ink Art Ensembles - Exhibition Series in the Greater Bay Area, where we will witness how Yau Wing Fung's innovative works spark a novel dialogue with those of other artists featured in the exhibition.
