Hong Kong art spaces are like mushrooms - they spring up wherever and however they can. In the case of Too Art gallery, the fertile ground was nothing more than an empty corner in the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
'It was just a corridor,' says founding member Carol Lee Mei-kuen, gesturing at the oddly shaped space. The gallery's last painting group show, entitled '+/c-', featured five artists and spilled out into the mezzanine. Gallery owner Yu Kei-kei has her office in what appears to have been a broom closet.
But size has never stopped Too Art from having big ambitions. Its latest exhibition is a handover-themed photography retrospective, Ten Years of Images - A Gift to Hong Kong, featuring almost 50 local artists. Founded in 2004 by Hong Kong Art School students Lee and Alex Heung Kin-fung, Too Art has set out to address one of the age-old problems of local artists: that Hong Kong galleries don't sell Hong Kong art. That means few people collect Hong Kong art, which makes it difficult for local artists to thrive.
As an artist, Lee understood the problem well and helped to organise the first Chai Wan Open Studios event, in 2002, to drum up publicity for homegrown art and artists.
But she also wanted to move beyond the limitations of fringe studio events and artist-run spaces. And so Too Art's mission was framed: to provide a commercial gallery to exhibit, sell and support the collecting of local art.
Since the premiere show, Good Start, in December 2004, which featured prominent names such as installation artist Ho Siu-kee and ceramics artist Fiona Wong Lai-ching, Too Art has shown more than 180 artists in 20 group shows.