Veteran Hong Kong painter Chu Hing-wah is enthusiastically attaching a relief image to one of four eight-metre-tall plaques to be put up in the West Kowloon Cultural District when its bamboo theatre opens over the Lunar New Year holiday.
The relief depicts a faa daan - the lead female character in a Cantonese opera performance - striking an operatic posture that Chu has painted in acrylic colours.
'She is in a modernised version of a traditional costume,' says Chu,explaining why the faa daan looks slightly different from what people may be used to.
'It is my own interpretation and reflection of this traditional art form, a mixture of traditional art and contemporary elements.'
Chu's contemporary floral plaques are among the works commissioned for the Bamboo Theatre Exhibition, the first visual art showcase curated by the M+ team, the forerunner of West Kowloon's Museum for Visual Arts. The exhibition will also feature works by fellow Hong Kong artists Gaylord Chan, Samson Young, Henry Chu and Hong Kong-China-based German photographer Michael Wolf.
It is part of the HK$21.6 billion arts hub's first cultural programme, the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre.