EDNA CHa @ Duk Dak Solo Presentation Booth
Art Central 2022
March 22-26, 2022
Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre
Details to be announced
Presenter: Museum of Site Limited (MOST)
Artist: Ms. Edna CHA (查傳訥)
Curator: Andrew LAM
BOOTH DESCRIPTION & FIGURE PAINTING OF EDNA CHA
Hong Kong-based Edna Cha (查傳訥) loves the otherness of art and alternative approach of painting, displaying stress on process and material, detail and intimacy. The artist has long been pushing figurative painting forward. She thinks ‘global’ and paints beyond local. The decontextualized narration of figure crosses and blurs the fictive and realistic boundaries of visual art and novel writing. Eclectically rich in subtle surrealistic and neo-expressionist fashions, as well as Western and Chinese culture-historical references, Cha’s figure paintings tell abstract and future stories about uncertainty and unreality, tension and intimacy, in association with the lost world of martial art.
The figure paintings of Edna Cha will conceive the various dimensions of wuxia or martial artists (武俠人物) and they will draw inspiration from the wuxia fictions of her world-renowned father Cha Liangyong (查良鏞 better known as Jin Yong金庸) . The paintings will extend the fantastic, poetic imagination of these literary images to figure paintings and unique trajectories. To Edna Cha, these martial figures portrayed in parallel with the story-line of martial novels which have been so famous in the Great China Region and even the world, connote the distinct life and working attitude of Hong Kong and Chinese people, who are ever-professional專業and patient容忍, efficient 敏捷 and effective確效, fierce機靈and resourceful足智多謀, diligent勤學and open to learning虛心.
Ms. Edna Cha will also open up her 350 sqm state-of-the-art exhibition space, tentative named as The Garden of Delights, a new creative space of Hong Kong based in Wong Chuk Hang, with The Blind Spot Gallery on higher level as neighbor. Gucci’s fine collection of luxury fashion, including the product lines of handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear and accessories, makeup, fragrances, home decoration and whatever identical to the band of Gucci can be exhibited and sold. Alongside with these exclusive objects are Edna’s beautiful figure works and painted fashion-objects, derived from her unique Gucci collection.
In recent months, the artist is also exploring the creative concept of the security cart with horses (鏢車), icon of martial art in the contexts of Hong Kong. The security cart has long been the image of housing/ travelling treasures across the boundary of ancient Hong Kong and China. For the Art Central 2022, it would also be painted with figure(s) of gold plate or different colors on canvas. The uniqueness of security cart also symbolizes the dynamic global and local logistics and transportation industry peculiar to the metropolis Hong Kong over the years. An instinct for the glossy or rich color, monochromatic character and action, Cha’s paintings will exclusively embrace the martial world of imagination and harmonize with the distortive reality of literary writings, mirroring the artist’s distinct quality of the mind. Cha will also use colorful or monochromatic motifs of Chinese martial art in the broader sense, hinging on the energic, efficient and transformative qualities of such century-old, world-famous city as Hong Kong.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Edna Cha is a self-taught, emerging artist based in Hong Kong. Free of institutional and academic impediment, Cha is fascinated with a vision of intermingling Chinese and Western cultures with the notions pertaining to contemporary concept, which colors most of her painting experimentations. In 2021, she was elected as the sole Hong Kong artist in an exhibition festival Savoir Faire from 30 September 2021 to 7 October 2021 at H Zentre where the collaborative project of trunk-painting was launched with the commission of Louis Vuitton Hong Kong. One may feel how impactful and impressive of her painting on one of their exclusive, iconic trunks. Edna Cha has also been invited to the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences as the first-ever Artist-in-Residence commencing from October 2020 to October 2021. She takes this opportunity to experiment studio practice in a rich cultural context embracing art, medical science and architectural heritage. In the culmination of her residency, the HKMMS Museum will present an exhibition which features and shares Cha’s projects of installation, painting and print-making with the public in the early winter of 2021. The artist is negotiating with the LV and Gucci, seeking rental sponsorship of her booth in the Art Central 2022. For 2023, she plans to hold another solo at the Thematic Gallery of Jin Yong in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
香港醫學博物館主辦 《西學東傳》–駐館藝術家查傳訥藝術作品展 (PRESS RELEASE,Oct 14, 2021)
THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF MEDICAL SCIENCES PRESENTS