Le Songe Creux+Mountain and Sea Series
Occidental knowledge, oriental image
Yang Feng
The exhibition brings together two scholar artists, Frank Vigneron and Ho Siu Kee. Having known each other for decades, they have comprehensive understanding of each other’s works. Despite their distinctive approaches and practices, the works in the exhibition have shown the oriental philosophical influences on their artistic practice and their introspective exploration.
Have been living in the city of Hong Kong, where he was born in, for decades, Prof. Vigneron’s works are influenced by oriental art and philosophy. He started to create his painting with roller-pen from the 1980s. Dense, non interlaced lines, with random void dotted on the plane, constructed an ever-changing abstract world. He named all his works with the name Le Songe Creux (means daydreaming in French), and consider the creation of the works writing. This repetitive writing is like daily practice, which requires enormous dedication. “Two aspects of the work that have always been present in my mind, and the reason why I see this project as life-long and ongoing, have been to relate them to the notion of time and to make myself absent from the work.”（Frank Vigneron, Le Songe Creux - between literati theory, Minimalism and Maximalism,
Prof. Ho Siu Kee’s recent Mountain and Sea Series in the exhibition is a departure from his earlier works ( e.g Aureola Series). “I’ve been using the body as the medium for artistic exploration for more than two decades. In recent years, I’m working towards the material existence of the body and the relationship between the body and the mind. In the end, the body has its limitation, and the turn from body to mind looks like a way out.”(in artist’s own words). Mountain and water are the two key elements in the recent series. Bronze is forged into the shape of mountain, and the water is the origin of life. Comparing with the earlier works which resembles more western artistic language, the works in this exhibition presents a new form: all objects contains water, and the round and sphere structures. “Water has no shape, it is the container that gives it shape, be it square or sphere. The sphere has no beginning and no end.” (in artist’s own words). This is full on oriental philosophical thinking.
Prof. Vigneron is a scholar from the west, and Prof. Ho Siu Kee has experiences of oversea education. But the two artists’ works reflected more oriental influences and philosophical tendency. From occidental knowledge to oriental knowledge, to oriental image; from the inside to the outside; from the body to the mind; these are all meaningful dialogues the exhibition tries to present.
