First published on ArtSlant China.
Text by Robin Peckham.
Definitions of Time: Painting by Au Hoi Lam
Edge Gallery
G/F, 60C Leighton Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, China
May 7, 2010 – June 30, 2010
“Nice painting,” full of rainbow palettes, white lace, and poetic textual overlays, is a difficult genre in the broader Chinese world, which is largely dominated by a set of aggressively masculine aesthetics at a commanding scale. But while the mainland art stars may be overwhelmingly male, the educational system in Hong Kong has, through a different set of equally sexist conditions, allowed for the creation of a fine arts world that, at least in absolute terms, tends toward the youthful and feminine. In her most recent solo exhibition, Au Hoi Lam avoids the most egregious indulgences of this genre while setting out to prove that there is space for the delicate in contemporary art. What truly sets her apart from artistic peers of her generation more interested in illustration and visual diary practices is her rejection of straightforward interpretation, extinguishing any overt narrative quality in favor of employing the canvas as a machine of pure affect. The pursuit of beauty in the autonomous work of art may not be a novel endeavor, and the artist’s process of deploying a sense of craft or labor within a temporal framework to memorialize the fleeting may be a rather typical exercise, but it is the very prosaicness of the practice that allows the finished pieces to function visually without too much theoretical baggage. Perhaps most impressive is the diptych “Rainbow” (2010), consisting of concentric circles drawn out with graphite and filled with acrylic on linen, appearing as a pair of eyes surveying the body of work–the landscape of lived experience–to which they belong. Less successfully, another series of pencil and embroidery on handkerchiefs including “Her Life is a Lie” and “She is Fictive” (both 2010) offer up personal but oddly universal platitudes.
Despite these weaker spots, the exhibition contains enough colorful abstraction to keep a more critical viewer satisfied: one composition seems to question the utility of a squared rainbow, while another literally marks time through minuscule graphing techniques. These worksare a marked departure from Au Hoi Lam’s earlier paintings, many of which are subtle, wash-based color field compositions borrowing thematic material from newspapers, wallpaper, and natural landscapes. The process of abstraction remains at work in her latest series, perhaps now transforming time into color; the palette is much brighter, suggesting an increasing reliance on the visual rather than the object represented. Au Hoi Lam is certainly moving into a new stage, hopefully retaining the consistency of her early work while becoming increasingly willing to work in new and more experimental directions.