WHAT

A pioneering figure in the Hong Kong contemporary art scene since the 1990s, and furthermore previously a professor at the Department of Fine Art at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for 27 years, Kurt Chan fuses the ideologies in Chinese calligraphy with the style of cold abstraction to form a hybrid creative voice. He employs such creative process to draw upon the notion of ‘painting words’ to deconstruct the structure of Chinese characters.

WHY

As a highly-regarded professor of art, Chan has pioneered teaching installation and mixed media art in systematically-structured courses, nurturing a generation of local talents, many of whom are pivotal figures in the local contemporary art scene. A veteran who has participated in over 80 exhibitions, including the 51^st Venice Biennale (2005) and the 3^rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1999), having his own solo show can be likened to a cathartic process, and signifies that he has come full circle. His practice is a well-honed balance between focusing on the calligraphic quality in painting and balancing Western rational and Eastern expressionist traditions, which render particularly poetic and philosophical qualities in his works.