In The Garden, LGDR Gallery, Hong Kong July 14 - August 27, 2022
In the Garden presents 18 new works from Hong Kong contemporary artist Michael Lau’s Flower series. Lau began the series in 2020, engaging figurative floral portraits, vivid color, and text to convey a philosophy he summarizes with the statement, “With flowers in the face, minds will be in the garden”—a call for positivity in facing the challenges of today’s world. Combining personal life experiences with signature elements of street life and pop culture, Lau boldly renders feelings of optimism, joy, and hope. In the Flower series, Lau deconstructs art historical masterpieces and everyday subject matter, combining them and reframing familiar tableaux into blossoming, surreal juxtapositions of images and text in an aesthetic that hovers between abstraction and figuration. The artworks on view introduce the latest evolution in Lau’s approach—close-up portrayals of individual flowers that nevertheless remain rooted in his early practice, artistic training, and formative experience creating three-dimensional artworks, in response to the artist’s 1999 solo exhibition Gardeners, a utopia of youth, friendship and fantasy.
劉建文:花園裡香港當代藝術家劉建文新作展「花園裡」，呈獻 18 件「花卉」系列繪畫。藝術家自 2020 年開始創作「花卉」系列，將樂觀、快樂、希望等積極的生活態度蘊藏於燦爛明亮的花卉肖像中，通過融合個體生命經驗及其創作中標誌性的街頭文化與潮流元素，傳遞人生 哲學:「願意將花放於面前，心境就在花園裡面」。在「花卉」系列中，劉建文追溯其所受藝術訓練，自三維創作回歸至繪畫這一媒介，以介乎抽象與具象之間的視覺美學及玩味十足的 超現實圖文並置，將藝術史鉅作及現實生活日常解構為畫布之上的綻放圖像。展覽中對單株 花朵如特寫鏡頭般的細緻描繪，體現藝術家在「花卉」系列中的全新嘗試。此次展覽亦是劉 建文歷經逾二十年的實踐演變，對其 1999 年個展「花園人」這一孕育青春、友情與幻想的烏托邦的一次跨時空回望。
