The most reliable transport in Macao is walking. A 30 to 40-minute walking distance is nothing compared to the crowd that could not be accommodated by three or four buses, or some 40 minutes’ waiting time at a bus stop. Nevertheless, passengers have to bear the entire burden if they have to cross a bridge or carry luggage without taxis stopping…
You remain silent when you face this circumstance every day. But what if the Portuguese had encountered the same situation when they landed on Macao 500 years ago in a parallel universe? Their luggage was not only a few suitcases but the giraffes and peacocks they snatched on the way… One nobleman could have brought a number of attendants with him. They pressed a large volume of luggage on top of buses and hijacked taxis. Eric humorously conveys the scene he fantasises through his masterly skills.
In the first instance, I knew Eric by the maps he drew: his delicate strokes with a fine point pen, relaxing layout and Macao’s outline in various ages. The dense forest and disproportional characters and architecture almost fills the map so much that it is deformed. The things that Eric draws are always skewed as if moving incessantly; even the waves he draws never seem to be stationary. Last year, his works seemed to have changed following his solo exhibition in Portugal: he has descended from the birds-eye view map to the ground without undermining the dynamics of the scenes. Like episodes in films, Eric’s new productions this time narrate ongoing stories.
China has inherited the legacy of Gu Kaizhi’s handscroll painting Nymph of the Luo River. Exhibition-goers can slowly read through the story recounted by the painter in detail while the scroll is being opened in a horizontal position. The artist adopts a similar approach to describing his imagination through the most important work in this exhibition. What if the Portuguese encountered the long queues waiting for buses when they reached Macao in those days? Please observe carefully what would happen from one end of the painting to the other!
Curator
Lai Sio Kit