Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Works by Chu Hing Wah
13 November 2010 to 16 January 2011

The University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by the Hong Kong artist Chu Hing-wah from 13 November 2010 to 16 January 2011.

Born in Guangdong province in China in 1935, Chu Hing-wah has had two successful careers. In Hong Kong, Chu had no formal art education but a talent in the English language secured him a place at the Maudsley Hospital in London to train as a psychiatric nurse. It was here during the first half of the 1960s that his interest in art was ignited. Following his return to Hong Kong, he embarked on his formal career as a mental health professional while pursuing art as a student at the extra mural studies department of the University of Hong Kong in the 1970s. Since then he has been an active artist and is a founding member of the Hong Kong Visual Arts Society. He has received many awards during the course of his artistic career including the Urban Council Fine Arts award in 1989, "Painter of the Year" by the Hong Kong Artist's Guild Association in 1992, and an Asian Cultural Council Award to research art in New York in 1993.

Chu Hing-wah paints mostly in ink and colour on paper. His earlier works depicted the sense of social isolation and mental anguish experienced by his patients. These works are small in scale and often show lone figures painted in muted colours. Following his retirement, Chu's paintings became visibly more colourful and he began to document the changes in the lives of people living in the New Territories as it became increasingly urbanised.

This exhibition features Chu Hing-wah's latest works, which build upon his life-long pre-occupation with the relationship between individuals and their environment. These paintings pay a nostalgic tribute to the aspects of Hong Kong life that make it unique.