Painting acts as a daily meditation, Wong Chak Hung has been composing this harmony mosaic symphony for over a decade. Many recognize him as a realistic artist who paints mosaic patterns from the Hong Kong metro, breaking through the boundaries between realism and abstraction. However, all these labels and reputations seem to have nothing to do with the artist himself.

Getting to know Wong’s everyday life, art is only a small part of his routine yet it performs as an evening ceremony celebrating the peace at night for an artist’s soul. To see beyond the small painted squares, Wong says the painting process has never been an enjoyable journey, he believes art creation is not suppose to be easy and comfortable, and artists should suffer to create; the same theory applies to life that he also taught his kids. To track his mental performance on the canvas rather than focus on the paintings themselves, the mosaic squares then become an illusionary landscape, releasing a strong state of calm and quietude, and reflecting the artist’s tranquility mind.  

Looking at Wong’s ink work in the recent years, it leads to a higher intensity of calmness showing the artist has found new freedoms in the media. The small squares in ink behave with more gestures and personalities, created a spirited scenery on paper. With very limited space to paint at home, Wong organizes the rice paper in a roll and places on the working table while he paints, no one gets to see the full picture until the last square is filled, not even the artist. In his vertical ink paintings, it almost seems that the random ink soaking squares have recorded the artist’s heart rate and appears in a new imaginary pattern. 

Art serves as a personal religion in his everyday life, Wong has dedicated with pure concentration and a spiritual mind, offering the viewers to experience enlightenment in this bustling city.

About Wong Chak Hung

Hong Kong artist, born in 1963. Wong Chak Hung graduated from The Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1989. His distinctive style of the painted MTR mosaic squares is significantly recognised by the audience since millennium. The simplicity of his works release a strong state of calm and quietude, reflecting the artist’s tranquility mind. Audience from Hong Kong may feel emotionally connected to Wong’s work easily, a rather intimate interaction between the audience and their everyday life memories. Wong was well recognised for his remarkable work, his works are collected by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Hong Kong Culture Museum, Fung Ping Shan Museum, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong Baptist University amongst other academic institutions and private collections.