THE final-year student was stumped and, try as he might, Casey Van Sebille couldn't help. Three years on, the lecturer in scenic arts at the Academy for Performing Arts remembers his intense frustration and irritation. And how, with sudden insight, he realised the miserable young man really didn't have a problem at all.
''He was supposed to be re-designing a Cantonese opera, but couldn't seem to find a starting point. I thought: why doesn't he just get into the guts of it? In the West, where theatre is one of the most exciting areas in design, the challenge is to redefine a show and interpret it visually. But that's just the point; it doesn't work that way here.
''As the student knew, Chinese opera is totally convention-bound and you don't meddle with it unless you want the audience up in arms.'' The lesson in cultural differences gave the teacher an intriguing idea: what if he were to tackle one of China's great classics through a series of paintings, a sort of imagined operatic drama.
The results can be seen at the Hong Kong Arts Centre's Pao Galleries from today until Sunday and, while the critical verdict is not yet in, few local exhibitions have stirred such intense interest as Van Sebille's Icons from the Red Chamber, comprising 12 large canvasses and a huge panelled work depicting the chamber itself.
''I've been a bit astounded by the number of people who have taken notice of the show,'' confesses the man who has dared to impose his own, highly personal view on that 18th century erotic masterpiece, the Hung Lo Meng (A Dream of the Red Chamber).
Icons brings together Van Sebille's work as a theatre designer, a painter in theatre, a visual artist and lecturer in scenic arts, according to a press release.
It also marks his first major solo exhibition in seven years; the last four spent in Hong Kong with his wife Jayne and their three young children.