Marcel Proust once said, “The only paradise is paradise lost,” highlighting the bittersweet nature of memory. Titled Vessels of Memory, this group exhibition investigates how memories shape our sense of being in a world with rapid social changes through the work of 13 artists including Alimi Adewale (b. 1974, Nigeria), Enrico Marone Cinzano (b. 1967, Italy), Philip Colbert (b. 1979, UK), Leonardo Drew (b. 1961, USA), Du Zhenjun (b. 1961, China), Gonkar Gyatso (b. 1961, Tibet), David LaChapelle (b. 1963, USA), Antony Micallef (b. 1975, UK), Samuel Nnorom (b. 1990, Nigeria), Babajide Olatunji (b. 1989, Nigeria), Gatot Pujiarto (b. 1970, Indonesia), Michael Staniak (b. 1982, Australia), and Danful Yang (b. 1980, China). Divided into five distinctive chapters, this cyclical exhibition addresses the formation, deformation, loss, and preservation of our memories. Audiences are invited to transverse between different spheres to come to terms with the amorphous qualities of memory.

Gallery address: G/F, Ruttonjee House, Ruttonjee Centre, 3–11 Duddell Street, Central

Featuring significant works by eight artists, including Jana Benitez (b. 1985, USA), Mr Doodle (b. 1994, UK), Dale Frank (b. 1959, Australia), Michal Korman (b. 1987, Slovakia, based in France), A.A. Murakami (b. 1983, UK & b. 1984, Japan), Thukral and Tagra (b. 1976 & 1979, India), Zhang Jianjun (b. 1955, China) and Zhu Jinshi (b. 1954, China), The Evanescent acknowledges the innate temporal and sensible qualities that are embodied by an artwork. By embracing the ephemeral nature of our visual experience, the grouping of artworks aims to connect with audiences and provoke new meanings to emerge.

Opening reception: 20 June, 6-8pm

Gallery address: G/F, Ruttonjee House, Ruttonjee Centre, 3–11 Duddell Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to announce Maggi Hambling: The Night, a solo exhibition by renowned British artist Maggi Hambling at its Hong Kong gallery from 26 March to 16 May, coinciding with this year’s edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. This marks the first solo exhibition by Hambling in Asia since the artist’s museum retrospectives in Beijing and Guangzhou in 2019. Pearl Lam Galleries will also showcase an important new Wall of Water painting by the artist at its Art Basel Hong Kong stand.

Hambling occupies a unique position as an artist who has consistently embraced a spirit of rebelliousness throughout her career, making her one of the most celebrated female artists in the British art scene. This spirit is evident in her tributes to seminal intellectual figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, an important advocate for women’s rights in the 18th century, and memorial sculptures honouring figures like the 19th-century author Oscar Wilde and the 20th-century composer Benjamin Britten. Rooted in her own lived experiences, Hambling’s work remains a reflection of and draws inspiration from people, places, and her identity as a pioneering artist with a queer perspective. Viewing painting as an intimate and physical experience, Hambling believes that regardless of the time dedicated to a painting, it must culminate in a single moment—akin to the profound physicality of love. 

Opening reception: 25 March, 6-8pm

Venue address: Ground Floor & Basement Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to announce the highly anticipated solo exhibition Mr Doodle in Space, featuring the exceptional talents of British artist Mr Doodle. This extraordinary exhibition at the Hong Kong gallery invites art enthusiasts of all generations to embark on a captivating journey alongside Mr & Mrs Doodle as they traverse the vast reaches of space.

Mr Doodle poses a question to viewers, "Will Mr & Mrs Doodle make it back to DoodleLand before Mas— aka Mr Doodle's evil twin, Dr Scribble—completes his mission? First, they'll have to travel through several different wonderful worlds, along with their faithful companion Doodle Dog! And what about Baby Doodle, where and when will he appear?!" Prepare to be transported to a marvellous celestial domain where boundless imagination takes flight.

Born with an innate passion for doodling, Mr Doodle, also known as Sam Cox, has captivated viewers worldwide with his unique artistic vision. His prodigious talent, often labelled as 'Obsessive Compulsive Doodling', has propelled him to fill sketchbooks and adorn walls, floors, and furniture with his intricate doodles, transforming his surroundings and leaving an indelible mark on the world.

Gallery address: 6/F Pedder Building, 2 Pedder Street, Central

Presented by Pearl Lam Galleries, A Diary of States of Mind is a journey into the minds of three artists: Su Xiaobai, Leonardo Drew, and Dale Frank, each presenting a unique perspective on how their daily engagement with art serves as a means of self-reflection, liberation, and transformation. The exhibition beckons viewers to delve into the laborious art practices where the boundaries of materiality, time, and emotion blur, giving rise to the search for the essence of art.

Titled A Diary of States of Mind, the exhibition underscores how daily artistic practice cultivates an interiority through the making of art objects and precipitates material transformation to celebrate the autonomy of art. This group exhibition focuses on the emergence of the artists’ inner worlds and how we as viewers come to terms with such visual experiences in return.

With precision, Chinese artist Su Xiaobai reduces the materiality of the artwork to investigate its core meaning, creating curved, textured, and sculpture-like entities that are both tactile and contemplative. His daily ritual of applying and layering lacquer paint on linen is a meditative process that captures the ever-evolving states of his mind. Subtle undulations, light and shadows, depth of texture, tactile sensations, and movements in his paintings serve as tangible traces, inviting viewers to explore his inner world. Su’s use of traditional Chinese lacquer not only reflects his deep connection to China’s past but, more importantly, also conveys a sense of longing to bring forth the innate quality of the medium. Su’s art refrains from explicit meaning, hence inviting us to enter into his states of mind.

New York-based sculptor Leonardo Drew’s approach to raw materials is a powerful manifestation that draws from the memories of his own lived experience in the city. Drew uses jagged, gold-plated shards of porcelain to create “living” works that engage in a profound dialogue between geology and modernity. His creations, weathered and stacked to resemble the debris and ruins from urbanisation, carry the weight of his daily contemplation.

Gallery address: 6/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is pleased to present Heart of the Matter, a solo exhibition by Shanghai-based artist Chen Yufan. On view are different series of two- and three-dimensional objects together with a selection of installation works. Chen explores the subject of regional geography and examines how it can shape our perception. Heart of the Matter invites viewers to pay attention to the nature of our consciousness and, in particular, our association with a physical object to reveal kinship among individuals, communities, and society as a whole.

The artist is known for Mulan River Project (2011), a collaboration with his brother Chen Yujun, which delves into the migratory patterns of people and goods of the Mulan River located in their hometown, Putian in Fujian Province. This signature project has paved the way for Chen’s investigation on the fluidity of our self-identity. At a time when we can no longer differentiate between art, cultural commodities, and objects of appropriation, Chen has become sceptical of the use of art to initiate any positive changes in society. Conversely, his counter strategy is to turn inward. Using the neo-Confucius principle of metaphysics《格物致知》as a guide, Chen provokes new meanings of objecthood from a socioeconomic standpoint.

Bombarded by disparate histories, incessant urban development, and often conflicting demands of our surroundings, human existence appears to have become increasingly uncertain.  How best should art be utilised as a tool for practising self-discipline to recover a fragmented self? Chen states, “Space is no longer a flat image. It is a tangible and psychological presence that can be experienced. While the dimensions of physical space cannot be altered, we can transform our mental and spiritual spaces through art.”

Gallery address: 6/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is pleased to present Here Comes the Sun, its first solo exhibition by New York-based artist Cynthia Polsky (b. 1939). On display is a selection of large-scale paintings and works on paper conceived between 1963–1974 that reflect the artist’s personal interest in the spirituality, aesthetics and traditions of Asia. With the rise of the conceptual art movement during Polsky’s active years as a painter, it is an interesting departure to look back at her time as a women artist who carved out her own creative direction that was outside of the dominant narratives of postwar American art of the time.

Cynthia Polsky was an active painter in the 1960s and 70s in New York, a time which is known for the prolific rise of abstract expressionism and colour field painting. Working independently from the art scene prevalent at the time, Polsky’s practice instead relied on her memories and lived experiences as sources of inspiration, most prominently the artist’s study of ballet and transformative travels to East and South Asia. This has resulted in a body of work that captures the nuances of an artist’s subconscious and imagination. The artist stated, “I feel these paintings of mine are going home. Somehow, they belong to Asia.”

The exhibition title Here Comes the Sun is borrowed from Polsky’s large-scale painting completed in 1974. It also reflects her interest in creative freedom, which is rooted in her knowledge of Eastern traditions and their respective views on universality which she experienced while travelling to Chennai, Sri Lanka, Japan, and beyond. The artist’s colour-saturated palette that invokes elusive, abstract forms is influenced by traditional Indian art, in particular 16th and 19th century Rajput and Mughal paintings, while vertically composed works like Chromatic Cascade I, II, IV are reminiscent of Chinese landscape ink paintings and Japanese calligraphy.

Gallery address: 601-605 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

“Two recluses were ploughing a field when Confucius passed by with his disciples. A disciple went to ask for directions, introducing himself as a follower of Confucius. They said to him, ‘Rather than follow one who avoids certain people, why not follow someone who avoids society altogether.’”

—The Analects of Confucius

Reclusive Means is a cross-generational survey of Chinese artists who use different strategies to question social conformity. Their retreat from society is a conscious means of creating a critical distance for investigating issues of tradition, cultural symbolism, trauma, spirituality, consumerism and dislocation. The desire to provoke a necessary space for independent thinking is not only to satisfy a private longing, but more importantly is also to achieve a deeper level of understanding of the meaning of our existence in a rapidly changing world. As said by Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610): “Without an obsession, no one is exceptional.” Solitude is the very soil for artists to cultivate eccentricity in their pursuit of true happiness and contentment. In fact, eremitism has a profound history in China that dates back to the time of Confucius or earlier. For example, Zhu Da, otherwise known as Bada Sharen from the Ming dynasty, pretended to be a lunatic Buddhist monk and retreated to the mountain with the intention of escaping from society. In the current information age when intensive urbanisation has pushed many inhabitants to soul search in the countryside, true hermitry is no longer possible. Every aspect of our daily lives relies so heavily on the use of mobile technology for basic sustenance. The only feasible means is to augment our immediate surroundings into imaginary and alternative realities.

Featuring works by Li Ming, Ni Zhiqi, Pang Tao, Qiu Deshu, Danful Yang and Zhu Peihong

Gallery address: 601-605 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Wild Silence, a solo exhibition by Filipino American artist Jana Benitez. This exhibition showcases Benitez!s recent work and her investigation of the countless ways that painting can inform our understanding of the human body. Wild Silence celebrates the medium of painting as uniquely equipped to explore the complexity and mystery of our embodied experience. In the exhibition title, “wild” captures the intuitive, boundless qualities of our feelings and sensations, while “silence” connotes the deliberate withdrawal from worldly distractions required for us to be present to our immediate experience. 

In the gallery space, a singular buoyant spirit runs through a diverse array of painting styles and formats. Sparse, lyrical compositions of dancing figures, for example, hang alongside more visceral, explosive, gestural pieces in dense impasto as well as calm abstractions of expansive space. Benitez employs a wide range of painterly techniques—from traditional painting with brushes and squeegees to experimental water reticulation—all in service of expressing the intensity, depth, and intricacies of feelings. Furthermore, the artist varies the pace and size of her marks, their levels of transparency or opacity, the relationship between colour massing and line, the wetness and dryness of the paint, and most importantly, the innovative manner in which these techniques can layer on top of one another. In turn, the human body is recognised in a multitude of ways: as a holistic refuge, as a tuning fork, as a carrier of memory, as a vehicle for somatic information, as a loudspeaker for intuition, as carnal matter, and as a site for energetic alchemy. This is most explicit in Benitez’s series of intimate drawings, which provide clues to potential interpretations of the exhibition at large.

Gallery address: 6/F, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Wilderness, a solo exhibition by Beijing-based painter Ma Kelu. On view is a rare selection of landscape and abstract paintings spanning from the 1970s to the present. This exhibition conveys the relationships between form, free will, and life existing totally free in an uninhibited environment.

As one of the key members of the avant-garde artist collective No Name Group during the 1970s in China, Ma’s lifelong interest has been to remain faithful to the process of painting. Grappling with different ways of working with a two-dimensional visual field, he demands complete creative freedom for his practice. Ma’s reliance on painting to create meaning has gradually led him to question detachment and even denial from the very object of his own making. The object means nothing without life, nor does the artist set any distinction between the two. In fact, art and life run parallel with one another and converge at some points to guide him. Ma claims, “Painting is almost a madness and impossibility. We tirelessly enjoy it, even though it gives us no path of return; painting is a way of existence, a spiritual drift.”

Gallery address: 601-605 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

A.A. Murakami are the artists behind Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers). Working across the media of sculpture, film, and immersive installations, their work explores themes of regional identity and the future of resources in the age of globalization.

A Thousand Layers of Stomach is an exhibition that simulates an endless state of change in a culture like the constant change that occurs in living cells. Drawn from Metabolism, a post-war architectural movement originating in Japan with an idea of rebirth of the built environment, A.A. Murakami are bridging technological advancement with vernacular aesthetics to probe the cultural, historic, and economic changes of the postmodern world.

Gallery address: 6/F Pedder Building, Central

A Solo Exhibition by Dale Frank: When his wife went away on her frequent business trips, Alex would often wear nothing but Huggies disposable nappies around their apartment⁣.
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Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Dale Frank at the Pedder Building.⁣ The guiding principle for Frank’s art practice from the early 1970s to the present is not to follow any set rules. Opting to work in an open and cyclical format with film, painting, sculpture, performances and drawing, his modus operandi is to use different means at his disposal to dismantle set notions of art and to encourage us to use our subconscious as something temporal and as the basis of experiencing art. ⁣
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Gallery address: 6/F, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is pleased to present Ren Ri: Yuansu, a pop-up exhibition of unique beeswax sculptures by Beijing-based artist Ren Ri at K11 MUSEA. Ren Ri (b. 1984) works in the unique medium of beeswax, creating, in collaboration with the insects, mesmerizing sculptures that document his intimate experience with bees as both an artist and a beekeeper. He manipulates the movement of bees and the formation of honeycombs to create metaphysical and hybrid sculptures, which investigate the force of nature and consequences of human intervention.

On view are two distinctive series of artworks: Yuansu I: The Origin of Geometry (2007), which incorporates maps into the make-up of the beeswax, and Yuansu II, in which Ren has created a series of stunning geometrical sculptures by manipulating bee behaviour. Ren places a queen bee in the middle of a box, while the worker bees start to build natural beehives around her. Every seven days, Ren randomly changes the position of the box, like rolling dice, to create a living object.

Venue address: Shop 610, L6, K11 MUSEA, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Somnyama Ngonyama, (Hail the Dark Lioness),  a solo exhibition by South Africa based artist Zanele Muholi in collaboration with Muholi Arts Project.

The exhibition will present a recent series of photographs and paintings of self-portraiture. Muholi’s evocative statements on identity and race encourage us to rethink the power dynamics between self representation and history itself.

Gallery address: 601-605, 6/F, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Equilibrium Shifts, a solo exhibition by one of Korea’s leading post monochrome artists. Kim’s art practice started in the 1970s and stood in stark contrast to Dansaekhwa, the monochromatic movement that swept across South Korea during the latter part of the decade. Kim’s creative trajectory is marked by three distinct periods: hisForm series from the 1970s, followed by experimental works on paper from the 1980s, and the signature Internal Rhythm series that the artist has continued to pursue since the late 1990s until today. Equilibrium Shifts surveys the artist’s early works and the formal development of the Internal Rhythm series.

Gallery address: 6/F, Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Alchemist(s), a group exhibition featuring five artists, including Alan Kwan (b. 1990), Thukral and Tagra (b. 1976 & b. 1979), Peter Peri (b. 1971), Ni Zhiqi (b. 1957), and Sara Tse (b. 1974).

As an ancient branch of natural philosophy and proto-scientific tradition with over 2,500 years of history, alchemy has been perceived as a form of pseudoscience. It originated in Egypt and was practiced throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia before the emergence of modern science. Similar to contemporary artists, alchemists spent years in their laboratories, conducting experiments through trial and error on the appearance of materials in non-qualitative ways.

Gallery address: 6/F, Pedder Building, Central