THE MAKING OF “RECOLLECTION OF OLD HONG KONG”

Layer one, ink transfer––

Of an old postage stamp I found while rummaging the boxes at a vintage store in Cat Street Market. It was faded and crinkled and didn’t scan well, leaving me frustrated with a blurry copy and an imperfect transfer. I reached for my laptop to search for a clearer image of a similar item.

What stopped me, though, were memories of a place preceded by two flights of uneven, dimly-lit steps, not unlike those that led up to Cat Street Market. Located at the end of a corridor lined with industrial suites, Studio IL Hoon Roh defied all expectation of what an artist’s studio would look like. Epoxy resin matted the raw concrete floor, shelf after shelf of toolboxes lined an entire wall, and an oven the size of four refrigerators placed next to it occupied another corner. For the Carbon Fibre, he said, they have to be kept below twenty-one degrees and baked for three hours at eighty-five. All of it done to enable him to make unrestrained choices when it came to art, to mirror the structures of nature he tried to recreate in his artworks.

I realised that the materials used in an artwork are almost as important as the idea behind the piece, as art is about creating a reimagination that connects to the subject. I looked back at the copied postage stamp and saw that the tattered surface captured the essence of old Hong Kong better than any photograph from the internet.

Layer two, mahjong tiles––

Arranged in what is most likely my eleventh attempt at a layout, it still wasn’t perfect. I wanted a combination where dots weren’t next to bamboos, and tiles of the same color weren’t next to each other.

Even at Studio IL Hoon Roh, construction wasn’t easy despite the detailed planning and prior experimentation. I saw Mr. Roh labour over digital renderings of his artworks days before they went into production––those were the only days I arrived later to the studio than he did, and only because he didn’t leave the night before. Still, we found ourselves re-adjusting the installation pieces hours before the opening. Though their structure was optimized with meticulous mathematical modelling inspired by patterns of natural physics, the installation pieces were imperfect to their final stage. Perhaps it wasn’t just about how well we plan out an artwork. It was the sense that the artwork stood only as a representation of a moment in time, a thought, a fragment of imagination.

I eased away from a the pursuit of perfection, preferring to let the layout live in the shadow of its own creation.

Layer three, jasmine flowers––

Painted over in acrylics. Distinctly Hong Kong and easy on the eyes, it blended in well with the other layers.

Yet it was missing the sensation I found when the lights within Roh’s sculptures were switched on, creating a collage of shadows across the gallery floor. The lights brought out irregularity and asymmetry in his works, throwing the easy balance into a nervous disequilibrium––a sense of transformation. I marveled at the difference it made, a reaffirmation that an artwork changes with every decision made by the artist.

I pasted a cut out from a tea advertisement. The odd placement of the cut-and-stick guaranteed attention, creating a necessary disturbance to the even composition.

My piece was approaching completion––

Never permanent, but a temporary state. The juxtaposition of the different facets of Hong Kong in my artwork demanded attention, and from what I learned at IL Hoon Roh, the end of a new piece marks a beginning of another that explores aspects the current piece leaves to question. Art is philosophy, a deeply intellectual endeavor in pursuit of an ideal.

And so it ends, and so it begins.