Wei Gallery is honored to present artist Lai Chi Man’s Hong Kong solo exhibition “Chill Out” for the first time. What is special about the exhibition is that there are three exhibiting spaces that echo with each other. We will present a miniature collection of natural images in our gallery space. Exquisite and delicate sculptures such as "Cloud", "Wave", "Scenery" and "Sprout", together with the paper paintings, constitute a poetic and approachable scene.
2020.09.09 - 2020.12.02
Wei Gallery
The exhibition "Chill Out!" is inspired by the three "Chill Out" installations that included marble drops combined with a table, a chair, and a bench, bringing Lai Chi Man's spirit and artistic achievements back to his hometown. Wei Gallery hopes that through curating this exhibition, a multidimensional display from paper to three-dimensional, from outdoor to indoor, could achieve a harmonious scene with the oriental spirit and natural image embodied in it. Let‘s return to the fundamentals of human beings and experience the attitude of beauty and peace by gazing at those still drop sculptures: between heaven, earth, objects, and subjects, chill out and ride through uncertain situations.
One of the important features in Lai Chi Man’s creation is making good use of any natural resources on earth. Stone, as an essential part of nature, is a precious heritage of ancient civilization; For Lai Chi Man, creation is not about wasting more materials but a way to cherish natural resources: Through applying stones and steel dross, rope, rice, and other materials, he achieves a form of balance with nature.
International sculptor Lai Chi Man was born in Hong Kong in 1949 and established in Taiwan. As one of the very rare sculptors who still working on stones in the Chinese art world, Lai Chi Man believes in nature and chooses natural materials to create artworks accordingly. Craftsmanship and artistic mission drive him to work hard on every creation process including conceiving, choosing materials, sculpting. He indicated that making stone sculptures are just like farmers who work under the sun day after day, constantly challenging different materials to reveal the historical significance of stones.
After graduating from the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, Lai Chi Man experienced life in Hong Kong, Italy, the US, Netherlands, and Taiwan. Later, Lai moved to Henraux Studio in Italy and worked with Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, and Pietro Casella.
In 1984, he was invited by Taipei University of the Arts, where he taught in the Fine Arts Department for more than 30 years. In 1989, he presided over Taiwan's first international sculpture workshop in Tainan City, during which he promoted public art legislation in Taiwan. He had important exhibitions in many countries and regions including Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Lai is warmly welcomed and recognized by the international art field aa his artworks were collected by series of important art institutions such as Dutch National BKR visual arts organizations, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and Japan Hara Museum.
Lai Chi Man’s abundant overseas life guided him to oriental culture to look for identity. He uses the principles of Chinese lexicography, such as "pictograph" and "compound ideograph" of the six categories as the concept and extends to the philosophy of life, view of nature and their relationship in society nowadays. The artist is also deeply influenced by the unique delicateness and beauty of Buddhist sculpture art, and transforms it into universal values that transcend culture by creating a series of artworks such as "Between" and "Scenery".
Lai Chi Man’s sculptures will involve a variety of creative mediums such as rock, metal, and wood, while his paper paintings are a transformation of the hieroglyphics in oracle bone inscriptions, and they implicitly explain the source of inspiration for his sculpture creation. His artworks could remind people of the Zen culture in Eastern and Western art back to the 1950s which reveals a direct experience of the present and existence.
Lai expresses his feelings and thoughts through lines and shapes in sculpture and on paper, giving people endless imagination. Lai Chi Man’s discussion about “Between” proved a Non-Dualism artistic outlook that neutralized the conflict between Chinese traditional aesthetics and modern abstract concepts by breaking the dichotomy fallacy between realism and abstractionism, and experiment and tradition.