Urban Council Fine Arts Award Winners, Hongkong Museum of Art, until September 5. THE six award-winners from last year's Biennial Exhibition have their chance in this show to demonstrate what they're worth. The moment of truth makes interesting viewing. There are two outstanding artists: Hung Hoi and Li Ki-kwok. Both have been at work for many years and are now in full maturity. Li began as a painter, turned to sculpture in 1983, and has established his own manner of expression. His wood sculpture was from the first innovative, and he has worked from a basis in animal forms through to the present when he attempts to convey mood and idea in shapes that still owe something to the animals but have turned further towards the abstract. His work here is impressive, moving in its use of what in other hands might be rather banal shapes. Hung Hoi, after flirting with a contemporary way of using traditional Chinese sui-mo, has returned to a mainstream manner with a powerful series of landscape statements that are also delightfully inventive. His long handscroll (over 31 metres) displays both of these qualities, and his small album-leaves are quite as much of an achievement as the three-metre paintings. The 24-year-old Lee Bo Yee shows large oil triptychs and diptychs offering a sideways glance at classical subjects such as Bacchanal. But the suggested crown of leaves and cascading grapes, although well-handled, permit the essence of the concept to escape. The result is a well-made painting with little other impact. Wu Wing-yee's strange gatherings of little stoneware objects should offer more as this young artist matures. They begin to do so here, but rather tentatively. A sculptor worth watching out for.
