{"id":22166,"date":"2025-12-22T16:25:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22166"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:25:42","slug":"artist-hung-fai-brings-both-control-and-chaos-to-solo-hong-kong-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=22166","title":{"rendered":"Artist Hung Fai brings both control and chaos to solo Hong Kong exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hung Fai has long stood out among post-1980 Hong Kong artists as a respectful, cool-headed rebel \u2013 a son who dissects his Chinese art inheritance with the precision of a surgeon.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For more than a decade, the artist has considered the weight of lineage, specifically that of his father, the ink master Hung Hoi.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">Instead of tracing and copying as Chinese art tradition dictates, he invites his father as a collaborator with seeming reverence: his father almost always makes his marks first and in cinnabar, which the younger Hung associates with authority. Then, he deconstructs his father\u2019s traditional <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\"><em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">shanshui<\/em>, or \u201cmountains and water\u201d, aesthetics<\/span> through folding and geometric lines that feel indebted to the modern, analytical approach of Chinese ink painter <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">Wucius Wong<\/span>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-inline-container e1a5rv550 css-1llrc1m e1yqhwb40\" data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<div class=\"image-inline caption e1fvabeq0 css-19sk4h4 ea9pn0s0\" data-qa=\"Component-Container\">\n<figure class=\"image-inline caption ea9pn0s1 css-1qeofuq e1gf69pb0\" data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<div data-qa=\"ArticleImage-handleRenderImage-ImageContainer\" class=\"css-0 e1gf69pb3\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Six Principles of Chinese Painting \u2013 Transmission XXIII (2025), by Hung Fai, with his ink master father Hung Hoi. Photo: Grotto Fine Art\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/12\/22\/61dd1b46-70a0-4ee4-9d26-0a1ff0f4269f_ae4425fe.jpg\" title=\"The Six Principles of Chinese Painting \u2013 Transmission XXIII (2025), by Hung Fai, with his ink master father Hung Hoi. Photo: Grotto Fine Art\"\/><\/div><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\" class=\"css-1ixmelf e1gf69pb1\">The Six Principles of Chinese Painting \u2013 Transmission XXIII (2025), by Hung Fai, with his ink master father Hung Hoi. Photo: Grotto Fine Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hung Fai\u2019s practice has been defined by a carefully calibrated, conceptual rigour involving the use of soaked layers of <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">xuan<\/em> (rice paper), a ruler and ink pens that create works as much about the distance between generations as they are about their connection.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But at his latest solo exhibition, \u201cA Veiled Revelation\u201d, at Grotto Fine Art on Hong Kong Island, there is a sense of this calculated control unravelling.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">This is felt most viscerally in <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Yearning<\/em> (2025), for which Hung Fai commandeered the cinnabar for himself. Rather than wielding it with brushes or manipulating it with his usual pens and rulers, he applied the pigment using cotton buds, creating a feverish, mottled image that resembles a vertical landscape of trees and rocks. On closer inspection, the landscape looks more like bloody scratch marks.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-inline-container e1a5rv550 css-1llrc1m e1yqhwb40\" data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<div class=\"image-inline caption e1fvabeq0 css-19sk4h4 ea9pn0s0\" data-qa=\"Component-Container\">\n<figure class=\"image-inline caption ea9pn0s1 css-12vv9w2 e1gf69pb0\" data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<div data-qa=\"ArticleImage-handleRenderImage-ImageContainer\" class=\"css-0 e1gf69pb3\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Yearning (2025), by Hung Fai. Photo: Hung Fai\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/12\/22\/52dc526e-bf99-4a95-9a7c-14f167e19b9d_3ebb08be.jpg\" title=\"Yearning (2025), by Hung Fai. Photo: Hung Fai\"\/><\/div><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\" class=\"css-1ixmelf e1gf69pb1\">Yearning (2025), by Hung Fai. Photo: Hung Fai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hung Fai says that the work was a mirror of a recent bout of eczema, a skin condition he had never suffered from before, made in the same dabbing motion he used to apply the lotion that brings temporary relief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/article\/3337278\/artist-hung-fai-brings-both-control-and-chaos-solo-hong-kong-exhibition?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hung Fai has long stood out among post-1980 Hong Kong artists as a respectful, cool-headed rebel \u2013 a son who dissects his Chinese art inheritance&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1785,4605,9229,10797,5730,13881,3569,6735,5231,1772],"class_list":["post-22166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-artist","tag-brings","tag-chaos","tag-control","tag-exhibition","tag-fai","tag-hong","tag-hung","tag-kong","tag-solo","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}