“Root” is a suitable theme for YY9 Gallery. Occupying an exiguous corridor, in a far off corner of Causeway Bay, the gallery already feels a bit like a fine art burrow, or a nesting warren for emerging local artists. Curator Movana Chen has made the most of the gallery’s modest means, bringing together local artists Ho Yuen Leung, Jaffa Lam, Kevin Fung Lik-yan and Kacey Wong to interpret her totemic theme with sculptural works in wood and bronze.

 

The most accomplished of the group, Kacey Wong – who seems to be popping up everywhere these days – explores man’s fraught relation to nature in a series of small dioramic mystery boxes constructed from rough-hewn recycled wood. Upon opening the boxes one finds tiny, solitary figurines engaged in potent little symbolic scenarios. In Unrequited Love, the viewer must unlock two padlocks on the box’s door to access a miniature naked female figure caged in a dense copper cell. A nearby diorama depicts bears constructed from glued woodchips getting bated and teased in an abstract zoo-like enclosure. Jaffa Lam has built a bricolage tree from scraps of wood and colourful toys and fabrics, said to represent the growth of Hong Kong’s increasingly diverse art scene. Ho Yuen Leung tirelessly carves tree trunks down into smooth, delicately balanced root-like totems.

 

The artists are all friends, and their esprit de corps is palpable in how snugly the work hangs together. Gracefully installed, the show is a cosy success, with wit balanced by wonder and conceptual cleverness countered with formal rigour.