Wangsim is pleased to announce Oriental Celebration, a solo exhibition of Don Mak at Mandarin Oriental, Guangzhou, on view from April 13 - July 12, 2024, coinciding with the 11th anniversary of the hotel group’s Guangzhou location. Organized by Wangsim, the exhibition showcases more than twenty pieces of most recent works on paper and edition works by the artist.

The Hong Kong native artist has also been commissioned by the hotel to create an illustrated Guangzhou city map. Backed by the artist’s and the hotel’s joint effort of surveying the city, the serene digital drawing depicts striking architectures (including the exterior and interior of the hotel itself), must-see attractions, and famous local dining spots in Guangzhou—the modern, sprawling metropolis situated in the heart of the historical Canton Region. Meticulously painted by hand with the artist’s evocative watercolor style, then rendered digitally, the work showcases visual combinations with a nuanced color palette, skilled stroke works and nostalgic atmosphere. In this monumental ode to the city where his family roots laid deep, the artist features quotidian motifs native to the region on the pleasantly detail-oriented map, and likens this process to a kind of witnessing, a deliberate and deeply personal way of discovering and understanding the essence of Canton living. The digital art piece is on display in the format of artist-signed limited-edition prints.

RESENTED BY WANGSIM

Wangsim is pleased to present Gutai: The Beginning, an online exhibition that explores the legacy of the historical art movement through masterworks by five of its founding members: Sadamasa Motonaga, Kazuo Shiraga, Shozo Shimamoto, Yozo Ukita and Jiro Yoshihara. The exhibition celebrates the Gutai Art Association – emerged in the mid-1950s in the creative void of a postwar Japan where the smothering sense of defeat mingles with old-school convention – and its effort to resolve the inherent contradictions between traditions of painting and the core tenets of a movement that called for experimentation, individuality, unexpected materials, and, perhaps above all, physical action and psychological freedom. Initially dismissed by Japanese critics as spectacle makers and labelled by the West as “mere followers of the Western approach”, the founding members of Gutai continued creating works which demonstrated a freewheeling relationship between art, body, space and time. The ideas of “play”, humor and celebration were emphasized; the curiosity was entertained.

The first generation of Gutai artists not only unveiled the first chapters of Japanese modern art, leaving a legacy which inspired generations of creative expression to come, they also collectively marked a radical beginning of the break-through of the myriad boundaries and the constraints of painting and: the beginning of the new artmaking (namely, to create unprecedented art or “art that has never existed before” – an early Gutai artists slogan).

View exhibition online or contact to see works in person

TGIF is pleased to present “Sometimes People Watching”, a pop- up exhibition showcasing most recent works on paper by Merijn Kavelaars from his renowned series SOMS (English: sometimes). The Dutch painter employs vigorously spontaneous, rebellious style of painting inspired by the CoBrA Art Movement, and takes aspect of the everyday experience and how we interact with the environment and transforms them into art making. The pop-up initiative is open exclusively at TGIF this summer, from June 22 through August, 2023.

The new exhibition of Kavelaars’ portrait works on paper showcases the artist’s spectacular skills with enamel paint, acrylic and spray paint. With slashing lines, leisurely sprays and smears of greens pressed into the grain of the page, the artist neatly arranges the dashing cast of characters into his oblique riffs on the observable world. Singling out various identities with a sense of cultivated lightness, the artist investigated people’s internal psychological processes of encounter and loss. The body of work has confronted one of the fundamental issues of existence: the built-in paradox in our personalities. The SOMS series, of which the techniques were developed by the artist through his older paintings dating back to 2012, was first debuted inthe Netherlands in 2020, and has been continuously developed over the past three years and showcased in Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Taipei. Titled Mid-Mid (Doodle), a limited-edition print work by the artist is also on view. The program aims to blend the unique contemporary art experience with the city’s popular coffee house culture, and highlights those fleeting moments—perhaps you have spent them here at TGIF—of every day which can confer connection and expectations.

Venue address: Shop 4-6, G/F, Wo Fat Building, 539 Queen's Road West

Parallel Space is pleased to present HOTPINK, a duo exhibition showcasing over twenty recent works by two female artists, Judy Gee and Ling-Li Tseng. Through a presentation of painting, sculpture and installation, Gee and Tseng collectively explore the fragile human condition and the uncontrollable nature of its evolution. 

An award-winning architectural designer based in Taiwan; Ling-Li Tseng started creating the wall-mounted sculpture series Seasons of Lupus in 2016. Composed of colorful self-expanding foam and layers of hand-dyed Spandex nest regulating the foam’s movement, the body of work offers subtle gradations of colors and reflectivity. Neatly arranged in oval and rectangular shapes, the pieces also remind the viewer of tribal ritual masks or miniature landscapes, sequentially leaving us in an awed fascination with the world of wonder, myth, and irregular energies. Tseng’s creations, whose material is drawn from a multitude of architectural traditions, have an explicit relationship to the body, exploring how the perceptual individual experiences are shaped by societal, economic, and geographical structures that are particular to a certain time. However, Tseng’s virtuosic approach is more than an extension of her professional achievement. It is a complete submission into her internal experience and an ordered expression of objects and space.

With an intentionally naïve quality, Temptation (2018 - ) and Addiction (2022 - ) series by Taiwanese-American artist Judy Gee stand one meter tall and one meter wide each—audaciously scaled for her voluptuous subject matter in sweet everydayness. Inspired by her time in Shanghai, Judy began depicting simple everyday indulgences but quickly dived into blunt seduction—power, wealth, and violence. With meticulous brushwork and vivid color palette, the artist presents hyper-realistic sweet treats with the magnificent glaze and darker sprinkles—sometimes your normal confetti, sometimes golden bullets. Confronted by the giant donuts perhaps looked at first luminous and plain as day, the viewer, on a closer investigation, awakens to the sheer density brought out by the pictures, of the myopic obsessions and the long-runningaddictions Gee—while making sense of her own desires and bicultural identity—conducts a sharp interrogation on addictive behaviors and investigates the mastery of willpower.

HOTPINK’s month-long program will feature private and public art tours, and one print and object signing event led by the artists. The exhibition is in collaboration with WANGSIM.

Gallery address: Shop 202, Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon

Wangsim is pleased to present No More Sorrow, an online presentation that showcases a selection of 14 artworks from Hong Kong based artist Chow Ciao Chow’s portrait series No More Sorrow, most pieces from which have never been exhibited in public before. Chow has been producing colorful and hyperbole portraits—originated from informal commission requests—which explore emotional trauma, self-empowerment, and sexuality since 2014.

In his No More Sorrow series, Chow chooses to concentrate on a singular theme: crying humans, presenting a nuanced examination of the artist’s personal struggle over solitary, anxiety, and trauma. The works also evidently mirrored the public frustration of many queer communities, and—throughout the challenging time—of the society at large. Yet with vibrant colors, bold strokes and dramatic patterns, the works remain forgiving, pleasant, and achingly positive, advocating emotional release after a cathartic cry.

Chow Ciao Chow is a Hong Kong based visual artist. Chow began his career with an extensive history in fashion design where he worked many years after first earning his degree in fashion and textiles. After leaving the industry in 2014, Chow co-founded the experimental space Mum’s Not Home in Hong Kong’s dynamic Yau Ma Tei area. In Mum’s Not Home, he began his full-time career as an artist. Chow experimented painting faces using different colours for different personalities. The results can be compared to colorful make-up or infrared thermal images. Using bold strokes of watercolour and acrylic paint, Chow’s skilled and steady hand beautifully blends his vibrant colours and captures a likeness impeccably. 

View it here.

The pop-up exhibition Ayumi Adachi is an exciting TGIF’s initiative showcasing a series of works by the Hong Kong based Japanese artist, on view from October 3 through November 7, 2022. Ayumi Adachi’s works on paper and large-scale installations reflect the tranquility, tenderness and strength practically found in the natural world. With Buddhist thoughts and a distinct sensibility rooted in her life, the artist has been tirelessly testing her understanding of time and space through her artistic practices. 

The site-specific installation Line (2022) originates from the artist’s long-running installation series, and is composed entirely of paper. Meticulous black lines hand drawn on each sheet, a symbol of Ksana—a Sanskrit word indicating shorter-than-a-finger-snap unit of time, and all enlightenment that happen in the space of a Ksana which eludes our conscious mind. Crumpled and suspended from the ceiling, the work immerses viewers in the marvels of a seemingly natural phenomenon. With the Ksana lines visibly twisted, tangled, and connected, Ayumi Adachi incorporates the understanding of time and life circulations introduced by ancient Buddhist beliefs.

Ayumi Adachi’s works on paper are loosely categorized and resonate her art’s most persuasive traits, which are the artist’s collaborative, performative and atavistic impulses. The major group of paper works on view began with a scanned image—a German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s illustration or a fallen leaf found on a hike—transferred onto paper using grey tone inkjet printing. The artist then moisturises the paper sheets, often with natural rain drops. Water sinks into the paper and brings out the colourful pigments buried deep under the greyish surface, the saturated pink and magenta, and the soothing teal and blue.  Through Ayumi Adachi’s approach, the body of works departs from its imbricated original images and becomes the foundation for her intuitive brushstrokes and mix-media exploration. The other series of paper works, Komorebi (Japanese for “sunlight filtered by the leaves of trees”), is a game of catching sunlights. Using watercolour, the artist traces the shadows around Komorebi in a timely fashion, resulting in paper works with captured bright voids, and stunning yet subtle details. Playful and seemingly futile, the performative process examines the concept of “time-passing” and records the tactility of the invisible. As Ayumi Adachi said herself, “I converse with the sun this way”.

The program is generously supported by TGIF and is part of Wangsim Artwork Consignment Program.

Gallery address: Shop 4-6, Wo Fat Building, 539 Queen’s Road West, Kennedy Toiwn

Wangsim is pleased to present Taiwan-based artist Liu Cheng-Hsiang’s first-ever Hong Kong solo exhibition, Cosmos of Thoughts: The Future Drawings, as part of the Y-LOT SciTech Series. The high-tech, dual-venue presentation will feature a wide range of recent computer assisted digital artworks created by Liu. In addition to the art pieces on view, the month-long “art & technology” program, powered by a group of esteemed local non-profit initiatives, will also include an artist talk, computer science and drawing workshops, bringing awareness to the local development of art, science and technology.

Liu’s tech-based art practice is inspiring and very much digestible for most of the viewers, who, even with our smartphones, high-tech drones and digital home assistant “Alexa”, are dangerously untrained for computer science or engineering. Carefully tucking away the long digital sequences and complex 3D renderings (which the artwork designs were originally blueprinted), the artist presents fine art prints using state-of-the-art printing techniques. Resembling traditional Asian paintings with meticulous Gongbi brushes, the pieces are completed in a fine and slow process, deeply connected to the artist’s inner self and ever-self-bettering spirits. Lending the art space a magical presence of galaxies, nebulas and cosmic rays with mesmerizing colors and great depth. Always sleek, quick-witted and incredibly tech-savvy, Liu has one time said slowly, “I created a digital universe for viewers to store their true thoughts. Through that, I hope they find their true self”. “The universe” highlights the relationship between machine and mankind, technology and creativity, inner and outer self; those exquisite works in it are inevitably the future drawings.

Gallery address: Part I: V54, 54 Village Road, Happy Valley (10th - 19th Sept)

Part II: Fortune Metropolis, Shop 714 (18th- 26th Sept)

Wangsim is pleased to present the third edition of Wangsim Selects: Hong Kong Showroom. The group exhibition features works by 8 important contemporary artists. Some of the highlighted pieces were made before the artists achieved international fame, offering a rare art-viewing experience while the physical art fair season returns to the city. The program also creates an extraordinary dialogue from artist to artist through shared media. An early charcoal drawing by highly celebrated Belgian artist Luc Tuymans will be on display. With the artist’s signature muted palette and eerie lights, the drawing is related to an important series of works by the artist, which sheds light on the history of Congo. Skilled painter New York-based Christopher Parrot firmly believes in the eventfulness of the gallery space. With charcoal drawings (Sins of Empire, 2017; Great Divide, 2012; Sirens, 2008) depicting fully clothed and nude people against the white wall space, the artist focuses on the history of human social roles and the visual art in general. Additional works and collectables in various media by Matthew Barney, Anna Leonhardt and Andy Warhol will also be featured in this edition of the showroom presentation.

Exhibiting Artists:
Matthew Barney, Anna Leonhardt, Christopher Parrott, Julian Schnabel, Shozo Shimamoto, Kazuo Shiraga, Luc Tuymans, Andy Warhol

Reception: 13.05.2019 6:30pm – 9pm

To RSVP please contact Adel Wang: info@wangsim.com or +852 6843 0499

Venue: 7/F K11 Atelier, 18 Salisbury Road, TST