Picture This is proud to exhibit recent works in oil and acrylic by two talented and inspirational artists, Hong Kong based Clare Ashford and former Hong Kong resident Hanne Winkler. The exhibition, Beyond the Surface, will be held at Picture This Gallery, 13th Floor, Nine Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong. Both artists will attend the opening reception, to be held on Thursday 6th October from 6pm to 9pm. The exhibition will then run until Saturday 22nd October.
Clare Ashford
Born and raised in England, Clare Ashford has lived in Hong Kong for over 20 years. Before taking up painting she worked in fashion design, a background which provided her with much opportunity to develop her command of sketching and drawing, and although largely self-taught as an artist, Clare has studied Chinese painting in Hong Kong. This technical background has provided her with the inspiration to work with a variety of painting media and subject matter, more recently favouring oils on canvas. Clare Ashford has exhibited her work in Hong Kong, Singapore and Europe. This will be her fourth exhibition at Picture This Gallery.
Water presents special challenges for the artist as it has no defined shape and no colour of its own, casts no shadow and does not reflect light in the same manner as a solid object. Clare Ashford has explored these challenges in her work over the past few years, initially painting water as a suspension medium for her subject matter, but now capturing the movement of the water itself. For her new collection she has looked beyond the surface, exploring the interplay of light, movement and colour. The result may be abstract, but the process is a series of precise steps to reach this perception of the abstract. In the artist’s own words, “If you look closely at each of my paintings, any given small area may appear as a static abstract image but taken as a whole the full depth of the image is realised. Magnification of the water and hyper-realism pulls the viewer in to the point where he or she sees that the painting is composed of thousands of small individually abstract strokes – there is no beginning or end, just the sensation of constant motion.”
Hanne Winkler
Born and raised in Denmark, Hanne Winkler lived in Hong Kong for seven years and is now resident in London. A self-taught artist, Hanne is inspired by her largely urban surroundings. She paints using acrylic on canvas. She has exhibited her work in group exhibitions in Hong Kong and London as well as at international art fairs in New York, Singapore and Brussels. This will be Hanne’s first exhibition at Picture This Gallery.
Hanne has drawn her inspiration from the urban environments around her, in Hong Kong, London and elsewhere. The grid like symmetry of the high rise urban buildings in Hong Kong has drawn her into a world of colour and composition, inspiring an interpretation where Winkler creates a story for not just each building but for every window in every building she paints. There is a stunning complexity to her work as she draws the viewer beyond the surface into each window. As those of us familiar with Hong Kong know, each of these traditional buildings holds its own world of dense, intense, multi-story, multi-use, residential and commercial life. In the artist’s words, “I paint the vibrant burst of colours and variety that is the very lifeblood of these wonderful iconic buildings. Always absorbing their character I work to capture the aesthetic beauty that lies at the very heart of traditional Hong Kong.”
Although the subject of Clare and Hanne's paintings are quite different, both of these artists explore the depth lying beyond the surface of their work. There is a harmony in presenting their work together, each drawing the viewer in, to explore the burst of colour and vibrancy in their paintings.
