For some Hong Kong architects, with successful careers, art is providing a great personal outlet for their flair, writes Rebecca Lo.
CL3 architecture firm’s managing director William Lim took to painting his surroundings at home and work throughout the most challenging phases of the pandemic in Hong Kong. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
William Lim has come full circle. Sixteen years ago, the Hong Kong architect held his first solo exhibition of photographs at Grotto gallery. In June, Lim mounted an exhibit-only show of his oil paintings created during the stay-at-home phases of the ongoing pandemic.
While Lim’s architecture firm CL3 is known for designing interiors and architecture projects across the region, art enthusiasts also remember it for Lantern Wonderland. Installed in 2011 as a Victoria Park Mid-Autumn Festival centerpiece under the aegis of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the fish sculpture comprised more than 2,500 red lanterns.
CL3 architecture firm’s managing director William Lim took to painting his surroundings at home and work throughout the most challenging phases of the pandemic in Hong Kong. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
CL3 architecture firm’s managing director William Lim took to painting his surroundings at home and work throughout the most challenging phases of the pandemic in Hong Kong. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A year of dealing with the pandemic’s repercussions — including the loss of his mother and eldest brother — pushed Lim toward taking up the paintbrush. “I took art lessons in high school but art as a career was never an option in a Chinese family. My father, a developer, instead encouraged me to pursue architecture. He would ask me to draw door jambs and that sort of thing,” he recalls.
Having tried out different media such as silkscreen, photography, charcoal, ceramics and acrylics, Lim began to paint oils in April 2020. “Everyone was working from home, swimming pools were closed, holidays were delayed — and I had all this time on my hands,” he says. He painted every day over the course of a year. “In between overseeing the work at CL3, I would paint either at home or in my office. My paintings became a sort of diary, chronicling everyday life during the pandemic.”
CL3 architecture firm’s managing director William Lim took to painting his surroundings at home and work throughout the most challenging phases of the pandemic in Hong Kong. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Lim is one of Hong Kong’s most noted connoisseurs of art, having made a sizeable donation from his art collection to M+ recently. He says he is into painting for the sheer enjoyment of applying each brush stroke on canvas rather than the end results. “For example, I like detailing every book on a bookshelf,” he says. “It is very therapeutic. Of course, my architectural training and how we communicate design influenced my technique, but there is also my long association with Hong Kong artists as curator of their exhibitions. I am very inspired by miniature and Chinese paintings.”
He is already working on future shows. “I have to break away from a possessive way of thinking that my art is just for me, yet still (be able to) inject emotion into it,” he admits.
Thomas Schmidt, managing director of Sepia Design Consultants, is into making sketches and watercolor paintings of the iconic structures he comes across on his travels. He has compiled these images and notes into a book called The Bumbling Traveller. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Art of wanderlust
Sepia Design Consultants’ founder and managing director Thomas Schmidt was inspired to take up art by his mother Mary Jane Schmidt. Her abstract paintings, done in acrylic, hang in United Airlines’ club lounge at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, besides featuring in many other corporate and private collections.
While he was growing up in Colorado, Schmidt’s mother insisted that he made birthday cards for his grandmother rather than purchase them. “I would tag along with her to craft fairs and manned the bar at her exhibition openings,” Schmidt recalls. “I grew up surrounded by the gallery scene. But I never got into painting — for me, it was always drawing or pen and ink with watercolor washes.”
Thomas Schmidt, managing director of Sepia Design Consultants, is into making sketches and watercolor paintings of the iconic structures he comes across on his travels. He has compiled these images and notes into a book called The Bumbling Traveller. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Thomas Schmidt, managing director of Sepia Design Consultants, is into making sketches and watercolor paintings of the iconic structures he comes across on his travels. He has compiled these images and notes into a book called The Bumbling Traveller. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Schmidt spent a summer in Vail, Colorado as a street artist, sketching and painting buildings that he then sold to tourists in the resort town. He moved to Hawaii with the money earned, starting his career in hotel architecture and design before heading east to Hong Kong. While his day job is mainly about developing regional hotels and resorts’ back of house, his side business is the Bumbling Traveller Adventure Series.
It is a collection of travel books featuring Schmidt’s sketches and watercolor paintings, besides notes taken during extensive journeys and holidays. “They are a fun memory of my travels,” Schmidt admits.
Thomas Schmidt, managing director of Sepia Design Consultants, is into making sketches and watercolor paintings of the iconic structures he comes across on his travels. He has compiled these images and notes into a book called The Bumbling Traveller. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
His latest book, The Bumbling Traveller, is dedicated to his daughter and budding artist Catherine: “I want to show her where I have been, and that there is a big world to explore. And I hope to inspire people to understand different cultures and environmental issues, such as deforestation in Borneo.”
Jason Yung of Jason Caroline Design likes photographing street life, musicians like DJ Marina Deeva as well as the physically and mentally challenged people he meets through the Continuing Rehabilitation Centre-SAHK. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Capturing street life
Jason Yung began experimenting with photography when he was studying architecture in the United States. While his day job is at studio Jason Caroline Design, creating high-end residences with wife and fellow architect Caroline Ma, he never gave up his hobby of capturing daily life through his lens. “Photography’s straight lines and documentary approach tend to be very ordered, which appeals to me,” he explains.
Jason Yung of Jason Caroline Design likes photographing street life, musicians like DJ Marina Deeva as well as the physically and mentally challenged people he meets through the Continuing Rehabilitation Centre-SAHK. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Jason Yung of Jason Caroline Design likes photographing street life, musicians like DJ Marina Deeva as well as the physically and mentally challenged people he meets through the Continuing Rehabilitation Centre-SAHK. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
On one of Yung’s strolls through Central, Hong Kong, he found out that a reputed noodle shop called Sun King Kee was on the verge of closure. He got to know its owners and photographed their last days on the premises — with the same degree of respect and enthusiasm that he would apply while taking pictures of the Russian DJ Marina Deeva and Japanese handpan street busker Taka.
Yung’s association with the Community Chest of Hong Kong’s Continuing Rehabilitation Centre–SAHK has allowed him to observe physically and mentally challenged locals from close quarters. “My exhibition of their portraits at a spine therapy workshop was a gesture of respect,” he says. “Through photography, I can communicate and gain trust in a short period of time. It was difficult to capture them smiling as some cannot control their facial muscles.”
Jason Yung of Jason Caroline Design likes photographing street life, musicians like DJ Marina Deeva as well as the physically and mentally challenged people he meets through the Continuing Rehabilitation Centre-SAHK. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
He draws immense satisfaction from getting to know people he would not meet in the course of a regular workday. “I go out with my digital camera at lunch, see buskers or homeless people, and follow them to (strike up a) chat,” he says. “I find it very inspiring. I deal with so many affluent people during work. Street photography lets me meet and learn the stories of people from different means and backgrounds. I learned about how Russians survived the pandemic through working with Marina, for example.”
Architect Arthur Chan of DPWT Design is also an artist and art teacher. Works by his students Samson Koo and Keziah Kwok have been highly acclaimed. Chan’s own sculpture is on display at the World Finance Centre. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Making the time
Arthur Chan’s part-time job teaching art at the Education University of Hong Kong as well as the Hong Kong Polytechnic University plus his fulltime occupation — running DPWT Design — leaves him with little time for much else. And yet the University of Hong Kong-trained architect who had also studied art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, has managed to put on shows of his installation works. Some of these are now displayed in residential clubhouses. And his sculpture Improvisation 5 adorns the lobby of the World Finance Centre North Tower.
Architect Arthur Chan of DPWT Design is also an artist and art teacher. Works by his students Samson Koo and Keziah Kwok have been highly acclaimed. Chan’s own sculpture is on display at the World Finance Centre. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Architect Arthur Chan of DPWT Design is also an artist and art teacher. Works by his students Samson Koo and Keziah Kwok have been highly acclaimed. Chan’s own sculpture is on display at the World Finance Centre. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
In recent years, he has been sharing his insights with students, ranging from fresh high school graduates to mature professionals interested in making time for creative pursuits. “I would like to take up installation art again,” Chan says, “but maybe not so large scale. My students and I explore projects together and stimulate each other’s thought processes. Some study art because they want to inject more imagination into their daily lives.”
Chan encourages students to use everyday materials such as peanut shells, buttons and plastic bottles to create art installations. “My student Samson Koo strung peanuts together to build a dynamic piece with wonderful play of light and shadow, while Keziah Kwok used different color buttons for a painterly work,” he states proudly.
Architect Arthur Chan of DPWT Design is also an artist and art teacher. Works by his students Samson Koo and Keziah Kwok have been highly acclaimed. Chan’s own sculpture is on display at the World Finance Centre. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Chan believes that “art is very different from design. With the latter, I need to spend a lot of time in meetings and communicate what others want. Art, on the other hand, is very personal. I can do what I want. Design can be forecast. Art is always a surprise.”
Yung agrees: “It is not about the money, it is personal satisfaction. Maybe photography is something I can continue doing when I retire.”
