2022 has just begun for less than two months, and we are always filled with confusion and unease when facing the repeated changes in the epidemic, life, and work. If you were asked about your imagination for this year, do you really have a picture in your mind? For a group of artists, they may also have no concept of “2022”, but it is precisely because of all the unknowns that they have unlimited imagination in their creations.
Sansiao Gallery HK will host the group exhibition “2022” in March, with guest curator Pan Zhen bringing recent works by artists Shi Meiting, Liu Jingnan, Zeng Siyun, Xian Langer, and Feng Jian, showing us their hopes and imaginations for the new year.
For Shi Mei-ting, 2022 is a set of numbers. In the digital world, numbers can form points, points form lines, and lines form geometric shapes. Flowers are an organic form, she tries to transform them into geometric shapes with ceramics, reinterpreting the flower stories from Hong Kong in a simplified way. This interpretation carries a hint of the concept of “heterotopia”, where the transformed flowers seem to be reborn into another form of existence.
Inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e art, Liu Jingnan’s painting style focuses on strong calligraphic lines with vivid color contrasts. He aspires to depict everyday encounters in the form of traditional art. Liu Jingnan interprets 20 as the past, and 22 as the future. He sees this as a revelation, an opportunity through his work to seek and understand the distance between the past and the future.
Embroidery is an art form that Tseng Si-yun prefers to use. She believes that 2022 reflects a kind of uncertainty, uncertainty about the future. She wants to outline extinct or endangered plants through embroidery to express a sense of the ever-changing world. The design concepts of the Garden of Eden and Indian palace gardens are referenced in the work, which originally symbolized the longing for paradise.
Xian Lang’er has always liked to reconstruct the images she sees on the Internet and the daily scenes she encounters in real life. She merges the two on the canvas, using bright colors to suggest the exaggeration of the Internet and the confusion of the real world. She believes that the “2” in 2022 represents opposition, just like the opposition between the real and virtual worlds, and like the disagreements between different perspectives.
Feng gradually became fascinated with depicting the repetition and variation of things in a realistic style, often using fine oil painting techniques to draw plant leaves and brick walls. He carefully manages the composition, creating a strong contrast between the organic forms of plants and the cold brick walls. Feng gradually discovered during his search in 2022 that the issue of global nuclear disarmament did not arise. If nuclear waste represents death, then the plants in his paintings are the most important symbols of life.
Despite the uncertainty of the future, as long as we shape our desired future optimistically, this unknown becomes an infinite hope. You may want to visit the exhibition and appreciate the vision of the artists for 2022.
“2022”
Date: March 10 to April 7, 2022
Time: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Location: Sansiao Gallery HK 1/F, 104-5, Wai Yan Building, 19-27 Yun Kim Street, Central, Hong Kong
Data and image source: Sansiao Gallery HK, guest curator Pan Zhen
