Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver

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Carrie Koo, "Sunset," 1996

acrylic on canvas, Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

A wave of immigrants arrived in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s as Hong Kong’s sovereignty reverted from Britain back to China. These newcomers included well-known artists with practices that, at times, mingled Eastern and Western influences or developed new tropes altogether. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s exhibition, Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver, on view until May 28, examines the work of four of these artists: David Lam, Paul Chui, Carrie Koo and Josh Hon. Although famous in Hong Kong, they remain relatively unknown in Canadian art circles.

The exhibition is loosely divided into two time periods – art in Hong Kong during the 1960s and 1970s, under the heading East or West, and during the 1980s, under Neither East nor West. Chui and Koo fall into the earlier period, when Hong Kong’s arts community was less developed. Much of the art produced then reflected the mingling of Eastern and Western influences.

Paul Chui, "North Series #4," 2013

Paul Chui, "Stain #6," 1977

Chui studied traditional Chinese ink painting in primary school. After his first solo show in 1958, he joined the Circle Group, an early avant-garde art collective in Hong Kong, and began experimenting with Western ideas about modernist sculpture and mixed-media work. This Western influence can be seen in Stain #6, a 1977 painting with a central hole from which a streak of glistening paint streams down. It looks much like the tarnished mark a water leak leaves on the side of a building or even a stylized waterfall cascading through a mountain’s hanging wall. After the 1980s, Chui’s work became more traditional, as evidenced in his 2013 piece, North Series #4.

Koo’s sublime ink paintings are reminiscent of traditional Chinese images of mountains in the mist, although her images are more abstract, particularly in her 1996 work, Sunset, in which acrylic paint mimics watercolour.

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David Lam, "My favourite place - Canyon Park," 1975

watercolour, Collection of Sam Wu. Photo by Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Lam was a co-founder of the influential Circle Group and his watercolours use contemporary techniques and styles.

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Josh Hon, "Dead Water Convulsion 2," 1984

oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

But perhaps the most contemporary of the four is Hon, also the youngest. He studied art in Hong Kong, but also attended American universities and embraced cross-disciplinary art practices from performance to multimedia installations. His large oil paintings, such as Dead Water Convulsion 2 (1984), don’t reference traditional Chinese painting. His 2017 installation in the show, AS: ME/mory, was made with a bathtub, a wooden stool, glass, electrical wire and clay. Two of his groundbreaking performance pieces from Hong Kong in the 1990s are shown on video at the Vancouver Art Gallery. They are long – each lasts more than an hour.