On the verge of getting a world-class visual arts museum and famed for being an art auction powerhouse, Hong Kong should better recognise – finally – the amazing talent already in its midst. Edmund Lee gives a shout-out to 22 of our city’s best artists. Photography by Calvin Sit.

Can you describe the way you work?
I suppose I work with ideas and explore the messages hidden between our perception and understanding – especially in relation to site and history. The resulting work can take many different forms, from a performance to a photograph, a marble sculpture or a light-box.

What are your usual sources of inspiration?
Much of my work to date has started with the image of an urban site or locus, which is then followed up by research. From here I will often unearth a network of competing ideas, narratives and impressions.

What’s the significance of your research-based method?
It gives me new excitement all the time. I spend a lot of time browsing the internet! I work to two extremes: I work intensely when I do contextual research for a work, and when I move on to create the work, I’ll do something that doesn’t require me to think at all. It’s interesting because I often come up with the so-called ‘creative ideas’ when I’m in this non-thinking stage.

Which galleries are representing you?
Rokeby in London and Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong – the latter of which is more of a non-commercial relationship.

Tell me about your public art project currently at Hong Kong Arts Centre.
It’s about the Hong Kong artists who were once active between the early 1970s and 1990s and who have now been largely forgotten by us. Apart from the work at the Arts Centre entrance, there’s also a seven-screen video installation on the second floor, for which I talked to several experienced artists and curators to see what they could remember of those old names.

What’s the project called?
The first version of it used to be called Art of Disappearance, but the title was later changed to Untitled – which is really fitting, considering the people it’s about.

www.leungchiwo.com

Images:
1) Leung Chi-wo
2) Enemy Bombing (12 marble sculptures, 2011)
3) Queen’s Possession (chromogenic print, 2002)
4) #15 Domestica Invisibile (chromogenic print, 2006)

| Wilson Shieh | Leung Chi-wo | Ho Sin-tung | Wong Wai-yin | Kwan Sheung-chi | Adrian Wong | Magdalen Wong | Kacey Wong | Chow Chun-fai | Joey Leung Ka-yin | Nadim Abbas | Lee Kit | Stephanie Sin | Stanley Wong aka anothermountainman | Simon Birch | Lam Tung-pang | Ivy Ma | Samson Young | Au Hoi-lam | Pak Sheung-chuen | Tang Kwok-hin | Tsang Kin-wah |