Art HK 2011 Retrospective 3.

There was a really huge variety of artists. For me, the works of some of the artists are more eye-catching than others. I sample below some works which struck me..




This sad looking dog-face man with long animal-like uncut nails placed himself inside a flower pot enclosed within a parapet, rendered immobile just like a house plant, walled in by shelves but in the background there appear a ghost-like pond, trees, clouds etc.

He hobbles along inside another enclosed space when there was a chair where he could sit which he doesn't not see or want to see?

He walks spiritlessly amongst the fields surrounded by buildings.

His emaciated body is weighed down by a log and his toe nails remain uncut as if abandoned like a wooden block, cut and separated from the life-giving sap of the tree from which it was taken. Like all other paintings, the background is a ghost-like urban landscape of consumer items, people sitting inside enclosed spaced under artificial lighting, incessant "building" activities. Building what, and for what purpose?



A joyless "fishing" expedition upon a roof in the urban jungle. What is he trying to catch? What can he hope to catch?

I like the colors of series of mountain made specially for Art HK 2011 by cut paper artist Wu Jianan, a former graduate of the Central Academy of Art, Beijing, specialising in the art of Chinese paper cutting. The work is entitled called "groups of mountains" (群山), formed by joining 11 smaller sections together to portray the ancient Chinese mythic tale in which the very first Chinese Emperor Huangti (黄帝) fought with  Koktian (邢天) at Shangyang Mountain (常羊山), beheaded him, after which he continued to struggle with his spears and turned his breasts into his eyes and his navel into his mouth and started looking for his head and the rest of the mountains represented various other ancient gods in the mythic tale.




A close up of a section of the long painting above. The mountain in red, orange and yellow has the shape of a human-like figure

Another section of the painting showing some human figures amidst the mountains.

There are what appear to be some wild beasts behind the hills and perhaps

I found this mythic bird paper cuts at the entrance of his booth.

And also a mythic lady mythic beast too.

An "octopus" with no eyes to see?

A ginseng like paper doll by Miki Taira, an artist from Japan.

A sitting figure.

A dancing figure

A geni emerging from a vase?

A running figure with a knife.

A hurt doll sitting on the ground.

A crouching figure.

A lying figure. The papers used are all printed with Japanese folk tales. All the figures have a void for a face: no eyes, nose, ears and mouth. What does that suggest?