Exhibition: Gallery 13, Shop D2-3, UG/F Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Road, Admiralty. 11am-6.30pm Mon-Fri; 11am-5pm Sat. Tel: 2868 3995. Until July 8.
Bright is the first word that pops into the mind about Gao Ming's works. Joyful, bold, these are very different works from what many mainland contemporary artists seem to be producing these days. That could be because Gao seems to be having a love affair with his homeland.
Born in Anhui province, he was shipped off to the countryside like so many others during the Cultural Revolution. 'I tried not to cry and began to plan how I could pursue my art in the new life,' he says. In between field labour and class struggles, he started sketching. 'I would get out my sketchbook to draw for a few minutes in the rocking ox cart during the harvest.' He took up the theme of village and land. The land, he feels, nurtured him. Oil paintings such as Village offers women in patched clothing, old doorways, eroded mud walls. Works like it, he says, 'got rid of the sad, tender and helpless feelings'. He paints mottled autumn fields, burnished October trees, dragon lanterns, farm women in springtime, newly weds being blessed and children in flower fields.
The landscapes, the children, recent ventures into more abstract works such as Memory of the Past (right) appeal less than those which concentrate on people. For what sets the majority of his pictures apart from the more manufactured young traditional oil painters to have emerged from the mainland in recent years is a great awareness of his culture, reflected in richly coloured, detailed pictures. And then there's his joy about the whole shooting match.
'Every time I stand before the canvas,' says Gao, 43, 'I become very excited and the world, including myself, does not exist any more. I love art more than any happiness and joy in my life.' An extremely unfashionable attitude.