Conceived as a journey through her 10 years of art practice, the exhibition documents the Lulu Ngie's explorations into human nature, her experimentations with composition, and her technical execution in both ink and oil paint.
Against vacant backdrops, characters absorbed in thought emerge under Ngie's brushstrokes. The process of painting bridges a gap between infinite visualizations and a finite form. As György Lukács notes, gesture can be identified as the "point at which reality and possibility intersect". The essence of such is that Ngie engages with reality through the fruition of the characters and in turn, these traces of her actions are manifestations of the artist's cognition.
The artist observes that "our world is overloaded with information. Like in an echo chamber, news easily becomes exaggerated and distorted." In these tumultuous times, her paintings of ethereal figures offer a moment of quietude and a place for contemplation.
This will be the artist's first solo exhibition at the gallery.
About the artist:
A graduate from Hong Kong Art School, Lulu Ngie has been painting for the past 10 years. Her ink on paper works follow a tradition in Chinese painting called yi-bi which focuses on sensibility and expressive use of empty space. The emphasis of her human figure drawings are in the use of brushstroke and the flow of lines. In this way, her practice neither aims to attain a true imitation of reality nor carry specific narratives, instead they are reflective of the painter's mental state.
Image: © Lulu Ngie, Gallery Exit