香港向來地少人多，這不但造成租金高昂和獨特的居住文化，亦直接影響著香港藝術的發展。例如有認為香港寸金尺土的空間限制，讓90年代的雕塑減少並促成裝置藝術流行；二千年前後地產低潮加上香港廠商北上已成風，讓更多藝術家自租工廠單位作工室，容許大型作品的實驗。反過來說，我們應該看到不少本土創作每每流露藝術家的對生活空間的敏銳。
以繪畫為例，從90年代裝置藝術盛行於本地時，一些畫家以繪畫裝置探討展覽空間與作品關係，到近年表述個人生活細節和感覺本地「80後」畫家，兩者都傾向以象徵「內在空間」的載體(如居室、心靈、夢境)作作品內容的背景。如果觀察相比本地「80後」畫作，相比中文大學藝術系系統的超現實和圖象化的「心靈風景」，個人認為對現實空間的抽象化或意象化的繪畫形式則漸漸流行於香港藝術學院(下稱：港院)的「80後」畫家群間。
是次展覽中的兩位畫家唐偉傑和冼朗兒正是畢業於香港藝術學院，同樣曾在英國渡過少年的歲月和學習期，然後才回港進入學院。也許他們的英國歲月令他們更早親近西方藝術，亦容易包容和投注於純粹美學的藝術形式，與時下經常被報導的「以藝術反映時事」的創作成對比。這種追求純粹美學的創作，自上世紀的表表者陳福善，到60、70年代的現代水墨，及至80年代末留學回港和本地自學的一眾畫家的努力拓展後，已成為香港「當代藝術」潮流下難得的小眾，發表機會更多從藝術空間轉向畫廊。
他們兩人對單一主題(如一檯一窗)的專注，由重覆繪畫和探討達至美學形式的提煉，當中求繪畫的快感和突破，強烈流露現代畫家對繪畫的關注。唐偉傑以不同角度繪畫一檯腳一桌角，猶如莫蘭迪(Giorgio Morandi)沉溺於畫面中大小瓶子的組合，以最經濟的構圖和造形，營造空間的一隅，展現於畫布上的空間。完成的小畫各自平放展示於間格層層的鐵架內，彷彿以裝置形式，讓觀者貼近畫家作畫時的視點，坦白重現繪畫過程中平放著畫布繪畫的現實。一方面流露畫家對繪畫的探討和處理的紀律性和理性態度之餘，也許更是畫家困於狹小工作室作畫的潛意識反映。冼朗兒與印象派畫家的創作進程相似。她把日復日復走過的電梯或走廊空間，以及窗格連窗外風景反覆繪畫，並予以不同色彩系列。畫中朦朧景象猶如印象派畫家繪畫視網膜上剎那所見但分秒變動的視覺現實，她直言要紀錄她的記憶或潛意識中那些重覆走過的空間(如校院、走廊和電梯)。這些朦朧空間的描繪，續漸從平淡色系，發展至濃艷而非自然的色彩系列，隱藏畫者欲付予的複製氣氛和躍動情緒。近來她以窗格及其窗外風景轉化成的抽象畫源於她從小對自己經常遷徙後的新房窗外風光的陶醉而起，但這些風光總落於朦朧但具體的窗格造形之內，永遠地構成從外望入美麗囚室的觀眾視點，始終流露空間的有限。
這些從日常個人處境轉化成非具象的畫作，流露了新一代畫家活在擠迫城市下，關注宏大社會議題之外，亦有敏感於自己最貼身的生活空間、小節和景象的一類，從而拓展個人的美學追求，正是「80後」藝術家的創作基調。
梁展峰 (Jeff Leung)
Hong Kong’s limited space with her huge population has not only created a unique living culture of exorbitant rental rates, but also directly affected the development of the Hong Kong art scene. Some believe that the preciousness and thus scarcity of space led to a decline of sculptures and the flourishing of installation art in the 90s, whereas the years around the millennium saw the recession of the real estate economy and the migration of local industries to the mainland, allowing more artists to rent industrial spaces as studios experimenting larger scale works. Conversely, we may also infer that many of the local creations express the artists’ sensitivity towards living space.
Take painting as an example. Ever since installation art prospered in Hong Kong in the 90s, when some artists have endeavoured to reflect upon the relationship between a work of art and its surrounding exhibition space through painting installations, till the recent years when the “Me Generation” artists who attempt to express personal living details and sentiments, both groups tend to turn to the vessel that symbolizes “inner space” (such as the living space, the soul, the dream) as the background for their body of works. Comparing the works by the local “Me Generation”, while the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has established a system of surrealist and pictorial “spiritual landscaping”, I personally find that the practice of abstracting or idealizing physical spaces has become popular among the “Me Generation” artists from the Hong Kong Art School (HKAC).
In this exhibition, both Damon Tong and Stephanie Sin are graduates of the HKAC, and have both spent their early youth and school years in UK before return to Hong Kong for admission into HKAC. Perhaps their English times have prepared them with early exposure to the western art and appreciate more towards purely aesthetic forms, which distinguishes them from the currently celebrated “art reflects times”. Through the hard work by the epitome Luis Chan of the last century, the modern ink painting of the 60-70s, and the overseas returned and local art students of the late 80s, this pursuit of purely aesthetic creations has become a prized minority group within the Hong Kong Contemporary Art, and more of them have exposed from the commercial galleries instead of Art Spaces.
The two artists, focusing upon a single subject, a table, a window, through repeated paintings and reflections, achieve elevation of aesthetic forms, and their pursuit of ecstasy and breakthrough in painting, strongly conveys modern artists’ concern for painting. Damon Tong draws the same table leg and corner through different perspectives, almost like Giorgio Morandi’s obsessive compositions of bottles, using the most economical compositions and constructions, he recreates a corner of a space to be represented upon the space of the canvas. The completed small paintings are displayed horizontally on a layered steel rack, almost as an installation, bringing the spectators closer to the perspective of the artist when he paints, restoring the truth of the painting process. This on one hand reveals the artist’s reflection upon painting and the disciplinary rationality involved in the painting process, on the other, is also the unconscious manifestation of the artist trapped within his tiny studio. Stephanie Sin creates like an impressionist artist. She repeatedly paints the elevator and corridor spaces she frequents, including window frames and the views beyond, giving them different colour schemes. The obscure images are like the inconstant and varying visual truths of the retina depicted by impressionist artists, and Stephanie strives to record her memory or the repeated journeys of the spaces in her unconscious (e.g. the campus, corridors, and escalators). These depictions of obscure spaces gradually develop from soft to vivid and unnatural colours, reflecting the artist’s inner mood for repetition and animation. Her recent works of window frames turned abstract originate from her childhood history, when she used to move house a lot and gaze at views from windows of the new homes, fallen in a trance. But these images always fell inside the obscure yet concrete window frames, forever forming a perspective from the outside to the beautiful interior of the prison cell, exposing the limitations of space.
These paintings that are transformed from daily personal experience, showing the new generation of artists, living in a crowded city, besides the important social issues, are also sensitive towards their most intimate spaces, details and phenomena, and from that extend their personal aesthetic pursuits, which is also the creative foundation for the “Me Generation” artists.
Chinese text by Jeff Leung
Translated by Sin Sin Fine Art
