Make time for two Tai Kwun Contemporary titles on a pair of the city’s most compelling artists: Chu Hing-wah and Ho Sin-tung

In case you missed the launch and reading of Chu Hing-wah’s Hong Kong Art Story earlier this year and Ho Sin-tung’s Future Perfect Tense, now’s the perfect time to discover this uplifting pair of Tai Kwun Contemporary-published titles, currently selling at Kelly & Walsh bookshops in Hong Kong. They’re part of Hong Kong Art Stories, a book series commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary and created by Caroline Chiu Studio. The books were originally intended as curatorial and educational tools for children to encourage greater appreciation for Hong Kong’s art history as told through the eyes of local artists, but their wonder is equally appealing to adults with aesthetic predilections. 

Local illustrators Hilarie Hon and Sushan Chan have interpreted Chu’s life story through his paintings and the evolution of his painting style. Chu, now in his 80s, is still painting scenes that capture the joy of living in Hong Kong. He trained as a psychiatric nurse in London in 1965 and returned to work as a staff nurse at Castle Peak Psychiatric Hospital in Tuen Mun from 1968 to 1989. The artist has used psychiatric patients as subjects for his paintings; their social isolation and mental anguish are captured in scenes of folk-like simplicity and stark poignancy. 

Since retiring from nursing in 1992 (the same year he was named Painter of the Year by the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild Association), Chu concentrated more on capturing the realities of Hong Kong life, including the effects of rapid urbanisation in places such as the New Territories. He’s still active and most recently held a show at Johnson Chang’s Hanart TZ Gallery. 

In a very different vein, Ho, a graduate of the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reflects on the influences that have shaped her as child and an artist in Future Perfect Tense. Her magical and occasionally dark book invites viewers to ponder what makes for potentially scary or frightening viewing. 

Ho believes in ghosts and expresses some of her deep fears in her pencil, graphite and watercolour drawings, which she combines with found and ready-made images such as maps, charts, stickers, rubber stamps and timelines. It brings to mind the works of Maurice Sendak and Tomi Ungerer, but Ho’s pencil drawings of dark gorillas and rabbits enchant the young and the old alike. She nourishes a passion for cinema that inspires and infuses much of her work, which has shown at biennales in Shanghai and Seoul. 

Isn’t it about time you discovered this dynamic duo?

Image provided to China Daily

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