Echoes of both East and West

 

Crystal Wu

 

Looking at the works of Hong Kong artist Christopher Ku, you cannot tell if they are distinctively Chinese or Western - which is what he aims to create for audiences.
 

In his exhibition Reverberation, the first of a two-part series, Ku looks at how art is stereotyped with their mediums.
 

He explained that oil on canvas is often seen as Western while Chinese painting is often perceived as ink on paper.

"For the first part of the exhibition I introduce materials that are different from the medium and the materials I've mentioned. By applying lime powder to canvas, it gives the effect of a clay-like surface.
"It appears similar to ancient paintings on cave walls, which is the earliest medium our ancestors used as the painting medium before paper and canvas were invented," he said.

"I attempt to dissolve binaries in art historical narratives that often reveal the ruptures between Chinese and Western ideology."

In Reverberation-20, different shades of green are painted onto the canvas before adding simple and almost crude line drawings that resemble prehistoric cave paintings. What keeps the painting from being identified with an era is the addition of a well-shaded branch on the left of the painting and parallel white panels on the right.
 

Reverberation-21, on the other hand, has stenciled auspicious Chinese characters, arrow signs and linked dots over large, sheer strokes of earthy colors.
 

"I also see my first exhibition as an echo of history. It is a significant development throughout our civilization. In the early days in the West we tended to use tempura until oil paint was invented, while in the East the materials commonly used have been xuan paper and ink, he said.
 

"Should we define East and West paintings by means of the materials and the mediums themselves? Or by subject matter in our efforts to define Eastern and Western culture in art? These are the questions being brought up in my works."
 

Trained in the UK and now based in Hong Kong, Ku's exploration mirrors his own identity and experience in both the East and the West, but the artist sees his works as something different.
 

"It would be more like an investigation or research into the possibilities of painting rather than just a personal expression. It is more like a linguistic approach to painting. I look forward to seeing the transformation of my work personally."
 

If the first chapter of the exhibition dwelled on the past, the second chapter, Semantic
Construction, looks to the future.
 

"I use the opposite approach to investigate the possibilities of painting without using the traditional brush as the painting tool, said Ku.
 

Taking away the conventional painting tool symbolizes, for him, taking away the conventional way of painting. The subject, the intention and the control are all taken out of the equation and how an artwork looks is left to chance
 

"I would decide if a painting is completed when I scrutinize the morphing shades of dryness and wetness - whether to make a splash using a different kind of paint, or make another scrape, or tilt the canvas to the side to let paint flow."
 

Ku's two-chapter exhibition Painting of Reverberation is on show at Illuminati Fine Art. The Reverberation series will run until July 15 while the Semantic Construction series will run between July 23 and August 12.