THE BIG PICTURE
CHRISTOPHER KU IS one of Hong Kong's most reclusive painters. Although a well-known figure at the Art Centre Art School where he teaches, the 46-year-old rarely exhibits his works.
Perhaps it is because of their sheer enormity: when Ku paints he stretches his imagination across three metre by two metre canvases. Works as large of this don't make him a popular name in small Hong Kong galleries. However, he is against such commercial spaces. Here is a Hong Kong artist who seldom leaves his studio.
When Ku paints, he says his aim is to pioneer visual language, not to merely give a secondary representation but to invent new images. It has been his lifetime's plight. For three decades he has been producing surrealist paintings that convey a strange, eery world blending organic forms with digital imagery. A retrospective exhibition that opened last week is paying tribute to this artist's struggle.
He stores his works by the thousands, in a studio in Sha Tin where his experiments with shape and form continue in full force. However this summer the artist has dusted off the cobwebs to have a rare viewing at the Cattle Depot Artist Village in To Kwa Wan. Beyond Boundaries is a massive exhibition at the village's central gallery, the Artist Commune - and for once the art space is done justice. Ku's work is so enormous that the massive barn walls stand proudly.
'It's important for me. I can see my own work,' says Ku, who has a penchant for puffing cigars. 'It's nice to see them being comfortable and dressed up.'
We meet at the exhibition the Satur-day after its busy opening celebrations. Those walking through the barn-like front doors are immediately struck by the two huge oil paintings that hang like visions from an alien civilisation. The surrealistic images are layered with dimensions: organic, husk-like shapes are juxtaposed with digital dots, arrows and rods.
The painting to the right of the door is entitled A Silent Piece of Another Unnameable Being To An Intraversable Space - Captured and was created in 1991 just after Ku finished his masters degree at London's Royal College of Art.
Such a complex title reflects perfectly the way Ku approaches his art. He says he believes that it must be a struggle, that the second it becomes easy and commercially successful, one should change tack completely: which has meant that Ku has spent most of his life struggling to survive.
This started in his student days. Unlike his contemporaries, he spent much of his masters programme at London's Royal College of Art, frantically swinging between styles. The expressionist works that had seen him lavished with awards while studying at Aberdeen's Gray's School of Art, and which earned him a scholarship to attend the Royal College, had to be abandoned.
'I was trying to keep away from the style that I was doing so neatly and so successfully. I just felt like there was no challenge. It's not real without going through some struggle,' he explains.
After pushing further and further away from recognisable visual forms, Ku created the first of his huge paintings.
'It came out like a miracle,' he says pointing up at the work. 'At the time there were no home computers, no internet. Even in graphic design you seldom see this type of imagery.'
The work made an impact in the British art scene when it was first shown in 1991, however nowadays, it is less spectacular. Ku came close to breaking through to the art world, but didn't quite make it. That hasn't stopped him busily creating thousands of works since. He's still at it.
When viewing the paintings in their life-size scale, it takes a while to take it all in.
'It's more like a mental force, meant to bring out your imagination,' suggests the artist. As people traipse behind us into the gallery, they stand and watch his paintings for a considerable amount of time before moving on to the next.
But when I suggest the similarities of Ku's surreal forms to Salvador Dali and ask whether he was a major influence, he shakes his head. This lifetime of work, he stresses, is reflective of a highly personal journey into his own mind.
'It's a definite no. I don't want to be influenced by anyone. I want to struggle and see what I can discover.'
Beyond Boundaries: Paintings by Christopher Ku, ends September 14. Artist Commune, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 64 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan. Inquiries: 2605 3129.
