We often associate the word “accident” with negative connotations because we are anxious of what is unplanned, unforeseeable and unpredictable. However, nobody can live through life without accident. In actuality, living through accidents can help us learn and grow - whether it is the process of dealing with the aftermath or the preparation for it. In the same way, artists can also learn through causing accidents. Although the four artists, Nimchi Yuen, Silvia Chan, Flora Fok and Jessica Cheung focus on different subject matters, techniques and medium in their creation of art, in all of their works, accidents are intended to happen.

Nimchi’s works embody the ambiguities and contradictions in a modern society where dreams are often prohibited by reality and one faces disappointment with hope and expectations. In her works, she characteristically juxtaposes the light and dark, creates ambiguous spaces, and sets her scenes in heavily textured backgrounds. These conflicting elements also echo contradictions in her own life and upbringing.

The Stolen Spoondrift works are the results of collaborations between Silvia Chan and nature.  Working in nature, on a beach, Silvia stalls white foam produced by waves of the ocean as it washes onto the shore with cardboard paper- to her this momentary sight, conditioned by time and environmental conditions produces “split-second beauty”. The ocean holds a captivating, mystical beauty for the artist. The vibrant mix of colours found in her Stolen spoondrift series illustrates the colours of emotion she felt upon listening to and watching the ebbing and flowing of the waves. The innovative method of drifting paint on top of cardboard paper washed over by waves with a spoon allows the artist to move around and make highly expressive gestures.

Jessica Cheung draws on real-life experience in her work, taking pleasure in recording things that seem mundane and ordinary. The still-life objects and landscapes portrayed in her work act as narrative for her inner emotions. Using experimental, painterly brushstrokes and strong, varied colours in her works for this exhibition, she takes us back to scenes from the time she spent in New York. This process of revisiting memories from the past allows her to make unexpected discoveries about herself and her art.

Flora Fok also uses her art as a vehicle for self-exploration. During the process of moulding a human form with clay, the artist enters a stage where she can forget about technical skill and rely on her own instinct and intuition. Though her figure sculptures are based on the same basic form, the variations in them reflect the different paths her instinct can take her in her reflective search. Fok’s sculptural figures are left deliberately hollow as there are some invisible aspects to life that we cannot capture.