Happy 90th Birthday Uncle Chu!

EVENT DESCRIPTION

To celebrate CHU Hing Wah’s 90th birthday, Hanart TZ Gallery will present Master CHU’s retrospective exhibition, featuring over 60 works spanning the 1960s to 2024, including both recent paintings and works held privately over the years. The exhibition presents a pictorial review of the artist’s long career marked by empathy and compassion, and his dedication to both the care of his fellows and of his own soul.

Although deeply interested in painting in his youth, CHU Hing Wah chose to train as a psychiatric nurse. From this time on, his professional career and his art-making developed side by side. CHU’s style and technique are moulded by the innocent directness of a naked soul, long exposed to the care of fragile mental patients. At its core, his art is a celebration of human sympathy. Over his long painting career CHU has mainly cast his eyes on the daily life of urban Hong Kong, but the emotional tenor of his works is free of any sense of crass urbanity. With his keen sensitivity to the vulnerability of the human psyche, CHU understands that the true pleasure of ordinary life is still found in the bonds of community and family. These are the strengths that enable us to withstand the corrosive quality of this commercialised age. They are the starting points from which we form a bond with our world.

The opening on Saturday, January 11, will be presided over by Dr FAN Tak Wing, former doctor at Castle Peak  Hospital, where CHU Hing Wah worked for many years. Dr FAN will first speak about the inner world of psychiatric patients. Chu Hing-Wah will then welcome all guests with arias from Cantonese operas, in which he is a true proficient.

At 90 years of age, CHU continues to be mindful of his fellows, especially those less fortunate than himself, and makes poignant artworks about life around him. His paintings are infused with a spirit that continues to illuminate neglected corners of the urban landscape that mark the outskirts of our collective psyche. With honesty and sympathy he shows how wonders might be found in an imperfect world.

It is a wonder to have CHU Hing Wah among us, and it is an honour to celebrate his 90th year with him.