Hong Kong Women Artists In Focus
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day on 8 March, we’ve decided to shed a particular light on some home-grown women artists who are making significant contributions to Hong Kong’s art and cultural scene.
Angela Yuen
ANGELA YUEN
With a long fascination with all things local, Yuen uses ready-made objects and manufactured plastic toys to create playful three-dimensional sculptures that cast coloured shadows resembling the Hong Kong skyline. Her works are cheerful, incorporating old-fashioned plastic objects such as plastic rulers, stencils, hair curlers, toy soldiers, rubber ducks, capsule toys, tea party sets, and floral beads that occupied the surface. With strategically placed lights, these ready-made objects are transformed into imaginative silhouette stories.
Angela Yuen, City Labyrinth: Snow White’s Perplexing Journey, 2023
Yuen highlights the symbolic meaning of her selected found objects and transforms them into her own artistic language. Through collecting manufactured objects, Yuen rediscovers the human warmth she was once used to as a child growing up in this city.
Her works have been shown in Hong Kong, Beijing, New York, London and Australia, as well as collected by Henderson Land Group, Hotel Stage, Isola and LRC in Hong Kong, The Middle House in Shanghai, Hermès in Paris, Niagara Gallery in Australia, and private collections.
Karen Chan
KAREN CHAN
Known by her artist name Chankalun, Karen Chan is a neon artist and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the intersections of traditional neon craftsmanship, sustainability and contemporary cultural narratives. She is the only active female neon light maker in Hong Kong. Her unique practice merges neon with unconventional materials to create immersive installations that challenge the boundaries between art, design and environmental consciousness.
Karen Chan, Light as Air, 2023
Her installations range from monumental neon sculptures addressing environmental concerns to conceptual pieces exploring identity, body image and collective memory.
Beyond her artistic practice, Chankalun is also a dedicated educator, leading workshops at M+ Museum, Parsons Paris, and other cultural institutions, demystifying neon as a contemporary art form rather than just a commercial craft.
Mak2
MAK2
Through her art practice, Mak2 contemplates modern issues through the study of philosophy, art history, culture, shifting socio-political environments, internet and new technology. She creates installations, paintings, drawings, videos, stand-up comedy routines. She has a strong interest in human connections with machinery, considering the impact of technology on human life, highlighting our dependence on machines for entertainment. She interrogates the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
Mak2, Home Sweet Home: Instagram Photobooth 1, 2024
Mak2 is well known for her iconic triptych on canvas series Home Sweet Home (2019-), as well as conceptual installations such as You Better Watch Out (2017), which was included in an exhibition presented by MoMA PS1 and K11 Art Foundation, and Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy (2024), a 7.5-meter-tall artwork created for Encounters at Art Basel Hong Kong.
Fiona Wong
FIONA WONG
One of Hong Kong’s leading sculptors and artist, Fiona Wong is known for her ceramic designs that push the boundaries between contemporary and traditional Chinese culture. Working with a medium that is rooted in the Chinese tradition, she stretches its limits, incorporating other disciplines such as tailoring, cobbling and lamp production.
She has devoted many years to art creation and education, focusing on exploring and developing ceramics as an artistic language medium. Throughout her career, she has been invited to numerous artist residencies in Asia, Europe, Australia and the United States.
Fiona Wong, Earthy Wings, 2007
Since the early 1990s, Wong has participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions internationally. Her works have been collected by museums and private collections across the globe, including the British Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art and the International Ceramic Museum, Faenza.