Hong Kong Upside Down: photo exhibition shows city in new light
Photographer Tugo Cheng offers a bird’s-eye perpective on city, while Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze captures our vertical city from the ground up, in exhibition to go on show at Chai Wan’s Blue Lotus Gallery
Hong Kong’s vastly different rural and city scapes provide a kaleidoscope of inspiration for artists – just ask photographers Tugo Cheng Chun-yeung and Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze, both of whom have a huge fan base in the city. The two have joined creative forces to stage “Hong Kong Upside Down” at the Blue Lotus Gallery, in Chai Wan, from May 6 to June 24, a show that provides glimpses of the city from great (read, giddying) heights.
Hong Kong-born Cheng, an architect by day, takes ordinary places and renders them extraordinary, whether it’s a residential development, industrial building, beach or bridge. In Heatwave (2016), from the “City Patterns” series, Cheng captures the many colours of Shek O beach from above, while Add Oil (2016) gives a bird’s-eye perspective of oil storage tanks.
“The oil storage tanks at power stations are painted with huge Chinese characters for ‘Oil’ – ‘Add Oil’ is also a typical Hong Kong saying to encourage another person,” explains Cheng.