Sim Chan, born in 1987, Hong Kong, currently works and lives in Beijing and Hong Kong. He graduated from Hong Kong Fine Art Institute in 2008, obtained the “Hong Kong Excellent Contemporary Artist” Award in 2009, “Best Works of Hong Kong Art Institute” in 2008, has participated in many exhibitions in Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland. It’s the first time for both artists to hold exhibition in Shanghai.

Sim Chan, a young artist grown up in Hong Kong, using his paintings to convey people’s cravings for meaning of life in the high-industrialized and agitated city. Twisted, distorted buildings and clothes stands, tattered windows and signboards, entangled telegraph poles and wires in his paintings are true and ugly proof for human existence. Contrast with the poetic and beautiful sky, they show that people’s yearning for beauties is being perished by the harsh facts bit by bit. City is the bearer of life, architectures consist of the outline of city. Living in the hasty and complicated city, people are overloaded with work, hurry on the seemingly no-ending road, lead the numb life day by day. Unconsciously, they lose their motives to find the meaning of life and become a generation of confusion and mediocrity. The sky in Sim’s paintings is immense and beautiful, but the closely surrounding building bulks always remind us: no matter how appealing the sky will be, people’s lives are constrained to one little circle. The sense of human existence is such a kind of weak and vulnerable thing.

Both artists' works portray the angst of the human condition in an urban environment and reflect on the essential human nature in current times. Which one to choose?  To submit to the arrangements of reality or listen to the words coming from our own heart? When would the meaning of life shed light to us? These are all the questions this exhibition will set us thinking.