JOHN YOUNG TSE-WING thinks of himself as a Hong Kong artist. But Hong Kong doesn't seem convinced.
Although he was born in Hong Kong, Young has lived in Australia since he was sent to school in Sydney in 1967. Nonetheless, he calls himself a Hong Kong artist when exhibiting outside Australia and is recognised as such in Europe.
'I feel deeply that I'm a Hong Kong artist,' he says. 'But I don't think the city feels the same. In Hong Kong, people always say I'm from Australia.'
His brother, former urban councillor Paul Young Tze-kong, still lives in Hong Kong, and one of Young's installations - comprising Diptych, Lumina, Anchor and Loops - has been on permanent display at the North Point MTR station since March 2002. Young says he'll continue to have his works shown in Hong Kong, on the mainland and across the region.
He has just finished work on a collaborative tapestry that will be donated by the state of Victoria to a new library in Nanjing. The large hanging, based on his artwork, took four weavers from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop 10 months to complete. Young says he enjoyed the process so much he plans to do another.
He has also begun work on a land-related project inspired by the area around his beach house south-west of Melbourne. 'For the first time I'm starting to have a rapport with the land,' he says. And he has started researching the history of Chinese people in Australia.
Young says it still rankles that in 2003 his name was removed from a shortlist to represent the city at the Venice Biennale because he was a non-resident. 'I think Hong Kong abandons migrants.'