Nobel laureate and writer Gao Xingjian sees himself as a modern hermit. Since leaving China more than two decades ago in quest of personal and artistic freedom, the 68-year-old has been leading a reclusive life not on the mountains but in exile.
'I'm not sad to be in exile,' says Gao. It gives him the freedom to write as he pleases. 'For the recluses of old, the purpose of their way of life was freedom.'
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, the Paris-based playwright and painter was recently in town to attend an arts festival in his honour co-organised by the French consulate general and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The Gao Xingjian Arts Festival, as part of Le French May, includes last weekend's production of his play Of Mountains and Seas and a solo exhibition at Alisan Fine Arts that runs until June 11.
The writer's craving for solitude and freedom to create is particularly pronounced in his paintings. The exhibition, entitled New Works by Gao Xingjian 2007-08, features 25 pieces and as the gallery says, his inks use language more profound than words to reveal the artist's 'deepest self'.
Gao sees writing plays as a form of communication - it is about forging contact between the actors and the audience - but thinks painting is different.
'It is a very solitary business,' he says. 'You enter loneliness in order to paint. It is really like a soliloquy - speaking to oneself within one's mind, allowing visions to emerge in the heart.'