Stephen WONG Chun Hei: The Star Ferry Tale

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Gallery EXIT presents Stephen WONG Chun Hei’s solo exhibition ‘The Star Ferry Tale’, showcasing the artist’s latest landscape paintings, on view from 23 March to 20 April, 2024. During his many years living in Hong Kong, Wong sketches as he rambles through the local landscape, which becomes material for his creation. His works vividly depict the urban and rural sceneries that incorporate idealised imagery from his subjective imagination, at once strange and familiar, prompting the viewer to contemplate the interdependence of man and nature between the real and the surreal. Confined indoors during the pandemic, the artist embarked on a virtual journey via Google Earth, experiencing landscape with the aid of imagination. The change in sensory experience has led to a transformation of Wong’s practice, the tone and mood of his works, carried over to the post-pandemic present. The new works shown in this exhibition further explore that particular way of seeing, questioning the essence of reality through the combination of real and virtual landscapes: When reality changes unawares, the imaginary world may yet feel familiar. From a more abstract and removed perspective, the exhibition speaks to the Hong Kong landscape during the post-pandemic diasporic experience.

The exhibition opens with ‘The Star Ferry Tale’, a set of 11-panel large scale panoramic oil paintings inspired by space documentaries. With galaxies as backdrop, the perspective is extended to outer space, overviewing Hong Kong from above planet Earth. Filled with imaginative elements, the work expresses the artist’s personal response towards the grandeur and infinity of the universe. Under the scrutiny of the telescope, the universe’s past exists in parallel with our present. Likewise, the work adopts a non-linear narrative where different temporal and spatial planes crisscross each other, a Hong Kong space epic documenting the transition of eras. Contrary to Wong’s previous works where the magnified hilly landscape of Hong Kong occupies most of the space, the panorama inspects the Earth’s curved surface from space, where the upper half is of the brilliant galaxies and the lower half the planet Earth submerged in a sea of clouds, with occasional glimpses of the harbour city and the surrounding hills. Under the immense starry sky Hong Kong appears miniscule even when exaggerated and enlarged out of proportion. Local landmarks such as Victoria Harbour and Lion Rock are the sole clues for identifying our subject. Other playful details include the Star Ferry in its space odyssey, lost landmarks like the Star Ferry Pier and Jumbo Seafood Restaurant, rediscovered upon small meteorites floating above the city. The departed becomes stardust in the night sky, reminding us of the beautiful things we once had.

Following Wong’s usual approach of incorporating a mode of transport as a narrative element, ‘The eye II’ and ‘The starry night over the two pillars’ both feature the Star Ferry. ‘The eye II’ documents the event of Super Typhoon Saola last year in Hong Kong. The artist places the Star Ferry in the eye of the storm, carrying the Lion Rock. Based on the iconic scene of the splitting and sinking of Titanic, ‘The starry night over the two pillars’ is set against the Victoria Harbour. In face of crisis panic not: Look, the calm night sky is teeming with bright stars. The image of the Star Ferry sailing into the unknown evokes the theme of migration, a reflection of the artist during his residency in the UK when he met the Hong Kong diasporas there. The 3-panel work ‘Camping at Long Kei’bears a closer resemblance to Wong’s previous landscape works, andrecords a camping and hiking trip by the artist. The three paintings do not combine to form a larger picture but depict the impressions of the same place at three different times, a tribute to the earliest painters who painted en plein air. Concluding with Selfish Galaxy, the perspective has shifted from the distant universe to Earth, from sea to land, eventually back into the artist’s studio. A camper van is parked in the centre of the studio, and the artist with his VR goggles on, is embarking on his virtual journey.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Born in 1986, Stephen WONG Chun Hei graduated from the Fine Art Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008. His early works drew inspiration from landscapes in video games, highlighting the visual impacts of the virtual on the real. In recent years, Wong sketches and paints en plein air during his sojourns into the countryside of Hong Kong, often incorporating his own memories and imaginations in his landscapes. Some of his solo exhibitions include ‘Dream Travel’ (Unit London, London, 2022), ‘A Grand Tour in Google Earth’ (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2021), ‘Indoor Travelling with Objects & Indoor Hundred Mountains’ (Touch Gallery, Hong Kong, 2021), ‘Hong Kong Spotlight by Art Basel’ (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2020), ‘Looking at the sky and the landscape beneath’ (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2018), ‘Daydream Travelogue’ (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2016), ‘The Passenger’ (Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery, Fringe Club, Hong Kong, 2016), ‘Step back to nature’ (Galerie Ora-Ora, Hong Kong, 2014) and ‘Stay Lost’ (Galerie Ora-Ora, Hong Kong, 2012). Wong has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as ‘Breathe of Landscape—Capture the skies’ (Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 2019), ‘Beside the City’ (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2019), ‘These Painters’ Painters’ (ROH Projects, Jakarta, 2018),  ‘Scenery Poem’ (Project Fulfill Art Space, Taipei, 2017), ‘Ensemble’ (VT Salon Art Space, Taipei, 2017) and ‘Paperscape’ (Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong, 2016). In summer 2023, Wong was the Artist in Residence at Jesus College Oxford and Visiting Fellow in Art. Wong’s paintings are collected by institutions such as Jesus College Oxford, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hongkong Land and Swire Group. The artist currently lives and works in Hong Kong.