Au Ka Wai obtained his Bachelor & Master of Fines Arts degrees, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, in 1996 and 2000 respectively. In 1995, when Au was still pursuing studies at the Chinese Univer- sity of Hong Kong, he held his inaugural solo exhibition at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and was invited to organize another solo show the next year. Right upon graduation, his works were featured at the Hong Kong Museum of Art three times in 2 consecutive years. The Fine Arts award winner at the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial in 1996, Au also won the Vermont Studio Center Freeman Fellowship, USA in 2002.
The artist uses one single material- paper in his latest creations. Layers after layers, the paper is being torn and transformed. Au’s works not only bring the versatility of paper into full play, their forms also convey the interrelation between painting and sculp- tural space. The repeated use of a single element reveals the artist’s attentiveness and absorption for his works, while unfold in the compressed space is the traces of a repetitive creation process, all done by a pair of bare yet artistic hands. In Au’s works, imageries of the Hong Kong local streets are made visible pieces by pieces, as a record of his ordinary days in town.
