Elsewhere: Au Hoi Lam and Sara Tse

Elsewhere marks the first collaboration between two local Hong Kong artists, Au Hoi Lam and Sara Tse, whose painting- based and porcelain works each respectively echo a similar sense of subtle fragility and temporal sentimentality deeply associated with one's personal history and memory.

For Au, the gesture of meticulously counting through a cryptic disposition and arrangement of numbers and objects portrays the artist’s own fascination in the notion of the passage of time and more importantly, her conscious persistence in preserving its intimate parallel relation to the painting surface, and displacing the canvas into a site of private commemoration. The act of immortalizing past events and the lives of mementoes reappears in the artistic practice of Tse. Instead of denoting signs and codes, however, Tse renders materiality into timeless form by painstakingly encapsulating found objects, bearers of past episodic moments, into delicate coats of white porcelain. Along with the object’s basic attributes such as temperature, texture, and color, the history embedded within is subsumed into possibilities of new life signified by the rebirth of the material.

The power of the narrative within Au and Tse’s works, whether through hints of moments in time or evocation of past experience, further manifests into Elsewhere. The exhibition looks into the idea of the non-linear journey navigated by the two artists’ own intertwining dream, memory, and experience, where hidden meanings and interpretation together form as one tale. Works in the gallery space are souvenirs, objects of desire attach to significant milestones within this imaginary journey, away from the here, and the now.

Au Hoi Lam, Dec 8, 1978 – Nov 11, 2011, Full Moon, Hong Kong, 2011, pencil, ink, acrylic on wooden drawing board

AU Hoi Lam (b.1978) graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Master degree of Fine Arts in 2004 and subsequently received her M.Phil. in Philosophy in 2009. She currently teaches at the Department of Fine Arts of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Art School. Her works are collected by Hong Kong Museum of Art and private collectors. Recent exhibitions included Au Hoi Lam Reading Room (Muji Atelier, Hong Kong 2010), Definitions of Time: Paintings by Au Hoi lam (Edge Gallery, Hong Kong 2010), Lui Chun Kwong. You Are Here, I am Not. (Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, 2010), Reversing Horizons: Artist Reflections of the Hong Kong Handover 10th Anniversary (MOCA Shanghai, Shanghai 2007), When Words are Sweet: Paintings by Au Hoi Lam (Central Library, Hong Kong 2006), Hong Kong Art Biennial 2003 (Hong Kong Museum of Art 2003) etc.

Sara Tse, Dress 01/06/2010-18:30, 2011, porcelain, dimension variable

Sara TSE (b.1974) graduated with BA (Hons) degree in Fine Arts from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, subsequently earned her MFA from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT), Australia and is currently a Doctor of Fine Arts candidate at RMIT. She is currently the director of clayplay. our studio, which is an art and ceramic centre. Her works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions in Hong Kong and abroad. She was the recipient of Fond Des Artistes grant from Alliance Francaise in Hong Kong (2006) and Award Winner for the Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (2003). She has participated in many artist-in-residences programs such as The Bagasbas International Eco Art Festival, Philippines (2008); the America Art Foundation Project, Vietnam (2005); and The International Workshops of Ceramic Art, Tokoname, Japan (1997). Her work is collected by private and institutional collectors such as the IWCAT Foundation, Japan; the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; the BIEAF Foundation, Philippines; the Hong Kong Museum of Art; the Hong Kong Heritage Museum and the Annie Wong Art Foundation.

The exhibition takes place until the 21st November 2011 at Osage Gallery (45 Caine Road, Lower Ground Shop 1, Cnr Old Bailey St, Soho, Hong Kong). Curator: Sonja Ng.