Chihoi: Leeway

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Blindspot Gallery is delighted to present “Chihoi: Leeway”, the first solo exhibition by artist Chihoi at Blindspot Gallery. Chihoi’s artistic practice began with comic and pencil drawing and has evolved to include oil painting. The exhibition presents a body of twelve paintings recently created.

These paintings capture serendipitous and poetic moments from Chihoi’s memories and imaginations. His foundation in comic drawing, which emphasizes segmenting motion and time into panels, intriguingly contrasts with extended moments preserved in his oil paintings. These dual methodologies represent the complementary dimensions of his artistic exploration, where emotions, imagery and memory coalesce within a singular frame.

Chihoi seizes introspective encapsulating the longing for a different reality. The Bankers catches a group of well-suited individuals smoking quietly in the alleyway behind a building in the financial district, reveling in brief evasion from the busyness of the day. Their exhaled smoke gently engulfs them, the artist poignantly capturing their idle demeanor and temporary detachment. The man who doesn’t take metro anymore portrays a man gazing at a traffic tunnel, enveloped in a mysterious, burgundy aura. The convergence of the man’s sightline and the end of the tunnel becomes a focal point, leading to an unknown destination, eliciting a yearning for an escape.

My Sky features a tempered blue sky with the sun in the center, obscured by a pattern of dots. In the subtropics, the overhead sun can be excessively intense and glaring. This abstract scene recalls experiences looking out from the window of a bus masked by semi-transparent advertisement stickers. Aim High depicts an aerial view of a cityscape with towering, spiraling clouds that seem to mimic the silhouette of the urban buildings. The quick encounter with the unusual scene inspired Chihoi to portray the scenery. Peace Attack encapsulates a serene moment from Chihoi’s visit to Los Angeles in the summer of 2023, his furthest travel since the lifting of covid restrictions. While strolling along Santa Monica Beach and its long coastline, seagulls were hovering low above his head, adding an unexpected and captivating sentiment to the scene. Chihoi’s paintings transform urban experiences into universally recognizable vistas, transcending specific locations.

The exhibition “Leeway” invites the audience to delve into Chihoi’s inner world, shaped by everyday observations, recurring memories and silent resonances. Based in Taipei, originally from Hong Kong, Chihoi’s mobility was restricted because of the pandemic lockdown from 2020 to 2023, leading to a surprising reconnection with his birthplace in the post- pandemic era. Chihoi’s witnessing of the rapid progress and fading historical traces sparked a profound sense of estrangement. This compelled him to closely examine the state of alienation in both Taipei and Hong Kong. The exhibition, aptly titled “Leeway,” draws inspiration from the Chinese term “remaining land” as a symbol of a space that encompasses both past and future imaginations. The term also embodies the idea of conditioned freedom, reminding us that mindful navigation is necessary to attain it. Through his paintings, Chihoi explores the paradoxical feeling of both closeness and distance between Hong Kong and Taipei, offering viewers a moment of extended time to contemplate and reflect.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Chihoi (b. 1977, Hong Kong) is a self-taught artist with a practice stemming from drawing and illustrations. He has also been publishing comic books since the late 1990s. Over the years, his practice has expanded to encompass oil painting. As a comic artist, Chihoi would transform imagination and story into frame-by-frame pictures. While as a painter, he would begin with observation and thoughts from reality, before materializing these introspections into intimate tableaus, capturing fleeting moments that allude to one’s inner psyche. Chihoi’s painted scenes carry urban textures and existential underpinnings, at times unveiling estrangement from an environment that once felt familiar. Chihoi’s solo exhibitions have taken place at Grafixx Festival / De Studio (Antwerp, 2022), ACO Art Space (Hong Kong, 2019), Fumetto Comix Festival (Luzern, Switzerland, 2010), and Hong Kong Arts Centre (Hong Kong, 2007), among others. Chihoi has also participated in group exhibitions at Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai, 2024), Hayy Jameel (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2023), Yi-Hsiu Museum of Art (Nantou, 2023), La Villa Belleville (Paris, 2022), 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (Seoul, 2021), Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2014), and Fringe Club (Hong Kong, 2014), among others. In 2011, Chihoi was awarded the Désirée and Hans Michael Jebsen Fellowship from Asian Cultural Council, an artist residency which took place in New York. Chihoi currently lives and works in Taipei.