Somewhere We Belong is a collaborative effort of five artists from Club Palette. Artists portray their representations which extend beyond physical locations, and provide different perspectives that relating themselves to the world. The collection mainly consists of paintings with styles ranging from realism to abstraction.

Discussions that use works of art as blueprints have long been divorced from materials or tools of production and other foundational elements; instead, they have expanded to encompass chance encounters and feedback that arose as they grew and developed. In the infinite extension of its chain of life, publishing labels serve as intermediate points and not endpoints. Humanity’s interest in the process of spiders making a web has almost completely disappeared, and the arrangement, reorganization, hunting, and counterattacks that take place after the cobwebs form have become the subjects of a new kind of observation. However, artists are not content to have their subjectivities taken as samples to be observed, and with their rackets of cobwebs, they echo society’s voices. The best works that arise out of this back and forth are rackets that have survived countless tests, and in different contexts, the artists’ reactive movements and hitting methods reflect a personal style.

In the course of globalization, a generation of artists has collectively sought out precise coordinates for Chinese contemporary art. Eastern contexts and spiritual signs are instruments of attack that can be used at any time, and whether in China or abroad, Chinese artists existing alone and confronting various challenges in the art world often find this overwhelming. However, the most important thing, an individual life, is overlooked, and so the first group of artists started to explore their inherent foundations, building and weaving their own styles and fashioning a shield of cobwebs.

This shield does not have superficial, traditional Eastern characteristics, nor does it respond to the Western media’s clichés about the unfamiliarity of Chinese culture. Therefore, it uses dynamic coordinates to fight back against the intense provocation of constantly being questioned; it transforms itself into an active element in a relationship network and contributes nodes to this extant yet amorphous network in real time. A sustainable ecosystem that nurtures cobwebs changes its structure in response to constant counterattacks, bringing out the new and providing inspiration and support for a new ecosystem.

In the highly entropic stage at the end of every rapidly-developing process, cobwebs absorb these conflicts with their soft embrace, then present a product in their structural features. It is avant-garde not because it provides clever visual perspectives or displays impressive techniques, but because it is omnipresent in battle, and because it absorbs the things that occasionally control or restrain individual or collective emotion in a space. The act of hitting a ball is just a hypothetical, but it has intrinsic, unique properties that are related to our understanding of the dialogue between artists and viewers. Extending the concept of dialogue to the bodily dimension, the interlocking cycles formed as times change, as history cycles, and as regions shift, as well as the artists’ analysis and organization of their artistic ideas, are condensed into a site that allows for the casual contemplation of ideas. The artists in this exhibition coincidentally chose this “racket of cobwebs” strategy. From accumulating the energy to spinning a web to wielding it freely, this one coherent, smooth movement could highlight the driving forces in the competitive arena of this new era.

Broken Garden is a collaborative installation that combines the practices of artists Amy Maria Tong and Sharu Binnong Sikdar. Through the exploration of deconstruction and reconstruction of daily objects, a surreal garden setting is fabricated. The installation suggests an idea of distorted forms in a dream-like setting, as they sit on a bed of man-made moss. With strips of delicate fabrics draped around the sculptures, they lightly drift in a gentle breeze. Thus, it creates a sense of eeriness in contrast to the fast paced environment of people passing by.

Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong is pleased to present “Intermixture Vol.2”, a sequel to the first “Intermixture” group exhibition in 2017. Following the idea from the first edition that the artists are using various materials and textures to form their unprecedented expressions, merging the boundary between paintings and sculptures, the second edition will also present these characteristics, and at the same time we encourage the viewers to find connections and new interpretations in their own ways. From motives, materials, techniques, colors and forms, there are elements that interweave with each other, creating sensations and space for thoughts for the viewers. The exhibition will feature works by Tadaaki Kuwayama, Yuko Nasaka, Jiang Miao, Masayuki Tsubota and Kim Deok Han.

The exhibition exploresthe form of the human body, pushing the boundaries of the proportions of the subjects. Cristina investigates human action and motivation, as well as the blurred relationship between thereal and the imagination.She inevitably formulates an answer to the social expectations, norms and values of society. Cristina transforms the figures using humour and a brave energy to create works that are filled with intimacy and directnes

Gathering a class of innovative painters Ana Benaroya, Anna Weyant, Alexis Ralaivao, Roby Dwi Antono, Ryan Travis Christian, Jason Mason and Jess Valice their works grows from the history of genre painting, it recharges the tradition of portraiture by embracing collage and disregarding exacting realism. These artists set about making images which are lovingly enhanced, heightened by an attention to craftsmanship and a care for line, colour, and hue. The figure dominates the canvas and each of the representations stage an evacuation of volume and amplifies a specific graphic sensibility used in technical drawings, sign painting, and cartoons. The figures in these works are obfuscated or exaggerated by another element, which could be seen either at the background, the foreground, or midground. This intersection instigates a chain of associations which turns over into a form of storyboarding and storytelling.

Much like the cosmos itself, the art world is an infinite realm composed of a great number of styles, techniques, subject matters, and motives for creativity. Orbiting around the shared qualities, the works sometimes construct entire galaxies or universes, often touching common philosophy or goals. The concept of Universes exhibitions is to introduce the artists whose practice revolves around exploring their own individual worlds, located in an unusual environment and populated with distinctive inhabitants.

Xenophoria is a new single channel video. As opposed to the more well-known term ‘xenophobia’, Xenophoria refers to a love of the foreign and is inspired by the name of a mysterious species of aquatic carrier shell, Xenophora pallidae. This shell calcifies objects in the seabed to its spine, liberally incorporating foreign bodies into its own structure. Likewise, Xenophoria stages a delirious search for the melanin pigment — the molecule responsible for skin color — as it manifests variously in both anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic bodies. Referencing the aesthetics of both microscopic imagery and ASMR videos, the work depicts such actions as dissecting squids and bursting their ink sacs, tracing the discolored tumours within Lam Qua’s medical paintings, harvesting funghi, and locating bodily moles, in an absurdist investigation of the substance of racial othering.

The use of vibrant colours and sensational brushstrokes displayed the artist’s expression of joy and truthfulness of the beauty of nature. To the artist, these were marks of days, weeks, and on occasions months and years of observation, reflection and dialogue between him and the world around him. Cherished memories and fond rhythms make up the beauty of one’s extended world.”

The exhibition features 30 pieces of the artist’s latest paintings. “The works presented herein are out there, as is nature around us, awaiting for the viewers to discover.”

Central to the artist’s thesis is notion of “Death of Expressionist Artist”, which new meanings are to be assigned by the viewers. The previous role of the artist was hence limited to create as pure and reflective he could be a plain mirror that would allow viewers’ to ascribe their own possible meanings to the paintings.

After four months of intensive coaching, the Comics Master Class of FEVER Hong Kong and France Comics Creation Exchange Programme @Hong Kong finally came to an end. Participants each completed a brand-new short comic, showcasing a variety of themes and styles. With the Midas’ touch of comics artist Laitattatwing, film director and screenwriter Derek Kwok and publisher Pei-shan Huang, together with one-to one creative coaching with veterans Siu-fung Mak and Honkaz Fung, there is no limit to the fantastic stories created by our participants under these dynamic tutors! Come and see for yourselves a new dawn to local creation heralded by these passionate newcomers!