Sweeping Vistas | Group Exhibition | JPS Hong Kong

As the era of pandemic restrictions near the end across the globe, living under circumstances which demanded isolation and social distancing for so long has forced us to show tremendous resilience whilst adapting to the rapidly changing social structure. The group exhibition Sweeping Vistas invites six contemporary artists born or based in Hong Kong to present intuitive observations of their inner landscape through sweeping vistas threaded with uncertainty, possibility and imagination. Our diverse coping methods to the “new normal” is analogous to Cynthia Mak, Elaine Chiu, Gianluca Crudele, Lokz Phoenix, Ticko Liu and Tobe Kan’s disparate artistic practices.

Imagine yourself looking over a sweeping vista, what do you see? Is it a place you wish to travel to or a place of familiarity? How does the vista make you feel? The group of artists was encouraged to create based on this prompt at a time when they began coming out of these long periods of isolation where they were forced to confront issues and traumas they had chosen to overlook.

Tobe Kan conceptualised her jungle scenery of dense and verdant foliage in tones of iridescent aqua blue, black and white experimenting with AI generated source images. Her paintings serve as a thought-provoking psychological mind map regarding identity, psychoanalysis, collective subconscious and feelings of alienation during this long period of isolation. Ticko Liu draws inspiration from memories of his past and lived experiences of Hong Kong citizens when creating another plane of realities on an extraterrestrial landscape where the tragic and wonderful realities of earth, humanity and interconnections all exist. Lokz Phoenix captures scenes of a dreamy forest landscape through a romanticised lens using her skilful play on the lighting of the sun and moon. Showcased alongside her canvas paintings are snail ceramics that seemingly have crawled out of her forest paintings after a long night of rain. Gianluca Crudele’s portrayal of natural vistas draws out qualities already inherent in reality. Yet, his strange depictions have a haunting and magical quality that adds an eerie sense of unease and cinematic narrative to his paintings. Elaine Chiu’s poetic cityscapes exude a poignant feeling of losing something of vital importance. Her play with crisp lighting, deep shadows and dissolution of refined details indicates the passage of time and fading memories. Cynthia Mak uses a variety of simplistic, brightly coloured geometric forms to create unique abstract landscape paintings that capture the breadth of our ever-changing scenes of nature, stimulating positivity and excitement as we bid farewell to the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter.

Ranging from realistic depictions of European forests and Hong Kong cityscapes, where the artists capture the scope of these vistas through observation and engaging elements of nature and cityscape that are easily overlooked. To paintings of extraterrestrial and metaphorical landscapes with a haunting and magical quality that reflects the artists’ ever-evolving imaginations and visions of beauty. Each artist’s approach, interpretation and presentation of a landscape and cityscape were uniquely different, presenting a series of paintings that is a continual cascade of form and meaning.