What happens when two artists who are married to each other work to create art together? The seeds for this duet exhibition of painter Wong Yankwai and ceramist Suzy Cheung were first planted in 1992, when Yankwai painted the surface of a ceramic vessel that Suzy created. It was quite a different experience for Yankwai to paint using ceramic glazes as the colors wouldn’t be as readily visible as say, acrylic paints that he is accustomed to. The resulting piece is a perfectly balanced marriage of form, lines and colors. They complement each other, inside and out; the open, uneven rim of the vessel shaped by Suzy’s hands echoes the warmth of Yankwai’s expressive brush strokes.
This led to a plan for more collaborative works, which took a while to actually materialize. They were waiting for the right time, and now, the time has finally arrived. In , fresh collaborative works by Suzy and Yankwai will be made available to the public for the !rst time. Suzy will also be showing her functional vessels and sculptural pieces. Some of the works involve multiple !rings, with underglaze and overglaze techniques. There will also be a group of works featuring “sketching with clay” and inlays on porcelain. These works illustrate Suzy’s deft handling of the clay to transform the medium into an extension of her vision, without betraying the true nature of the clay itself.
Yankwai will be showing some of his recent acrylic on canvas paintings. Colour is his primary material; it makes up the structure, form and movement of his work. Bright and strong, his colours overlap, contrast, beckon and push against each other producing a strong musical resonance that keeps them in constant movement. His work is constant creation and destruction in motion. These highly charged paintings leave a strong impression on the viewer. One can sometimes see a familiar object among the many forms that make up his work, such as an airplane or fish, but they have been partially altered, losing their shape, identity and nature. The painter has recreated them by making them into simple “colour-objects” with which he plays liberally on the canvas (From an essay written by Gérard Henry, Amaronap, 2007).
Image: © Wong Yankwai, Sin Sin Fine Art
