AT the age of 32, Victor Lai has the assurance that would usually be associated with a considerably older painter. And that assurance is demonstrated in canvas after canvas in the present exhibition, not in a Chinese style but in the Western media of oil and acrylic.
In a large 1.8 by 2.1 metres oil canvas called An Indian Dream, the finely drawn figures of a naked man and woman fill the lower part while above them, in the night-blue atmosphere, floats a curious ectoplasmic vision of fleshly form.
It is a curiously moving scene, between a vision, a dream and some sort of reality.
The several canvases titled This is not a Flower Painting offer instances of variously suggested and furnished interiors in which flowers lend their colouration to things not floral. These are what we might call jeu d'esprit, - paintings for the joy of colour as well as their intelligent and playful use.
The achievement varies, at best to brilliant and amusing.