While I was away《我回來了》
Date: 18 November - 24 December, 2017
Venue: Gallery Exit, Hong Kong
The current exhibition is a continuation of Tang's 2015 solo show "I was away for a while". The artist revisits the theme of "being away" with a new series of works based on his experience in Kyotango, Japan, a city he visited this September during an artist residency programme.
Tang reconstructs his impressions of Kyotango, a seaside town facing the Sea of Japan, through ink painting. His works show the scenery and landscape from different perspectives. In order to recreate the tone of the sky over Kyotango, he projects light of a similar tone onto the works. With the series, he hopes to evoke the feeling of getting away from city life.
The artist is well aware of the contrast between traditional ink painting techniques and current exhibition practice. This is apparent not only in the incorporation of light into his works but also in his use of window blinds and screens as hanging scrolls. A traditional form of presentation that goes back hundreds of years, scroll paintings usually hang suspended from a wooden rod. Tang, however, uses coloured fluorescent tubes instead - a choice that literally casts new light on an ancient practice.
鄧氏繼2015年個展《外出一會》後再次以「離開」為題,一系列作品靈感來自他於今年九月在日本京丹後的藝術駐留經驗。
他透過水墨畫重塑在日本交流時所到之地的風景印象;大小型的作品以不同視點展現了京丹後--這個面向日本海的小鎮的風貌;投影在作品和畫廊牆上是當地天空的顏色。藝術家希望觀眾透過此系列作品,感受他經常以「離開」作為走近大自然的心情與感興。
鄧氏的水墨作品平衡了傳統技巧與當代藝術的呈現形式,這種富個人特色的創作手法尤見於其窗簾及垂簾系列作品。自古以來,水墨作品都常被懸掛在木軸頭上展示,然而,鄧氏卻採用顏色燈管等物料,吊詭地以不同方式將「光」採納於作品之中,名副其實地為古老的藝術實踐投上嶄新光芒。
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