Visiting Fortanian Open Studio

Where the creative ideas come from? Do artists possess unlimited ideas? I visited the Fortanian Open Studio last week and admitted different form of artworks. Then, I understood the gradual art generation. Not only is it living in our surroundings, but it is also acquiring its own story letting the artworks more meaningful and specific. That’s why the artworks can attract us.

  

Many sockets were painted on Ama Huen Ning’s artworks. I asked Ama why she painted these. Being a mother, Ama spent lots of time in her house with her baby, hence started to notice a lot of little things on which she never paid much of attention in the past such as light switches, sockets. She said” Even though they are ordinary things that seem mundane, but our lives cannot function without them.”I was interested in it because Ama can seek a channel to link her daily life through painting different type of sockets. Art is unrestrictive. Although it may come out from mundane things, it can be a spring of creation and break our banal living style. Therefore, we may appreciate different parts of our life in order to generate different angles of views, which like Ama’s artworks—different angles of sockets.

"The construction site march"

I visited Chan Siu Min’s studio, Chung Fung Studio. Mr. Chan likes painting artworks relating to Hong Kong’s social event and his daily life. Both “The construction site march”(工地進行曲) and “To be demolished”(待拆) reflected the development of Hong Kong. “The construction site march” generated an unpredictable situation. Looking down the site, workers and machines were crisscross. The taller the building was, the closer the noise was. Was it a symbol of flourish or the beginning of nightmare? Nobody knew what the next melody of the march was. “To be demolished” showed the consequence of development in Hong Kong. Experiencing different stories around it, the building cannot avoid being demolished eventually.

"To be demolished"

Although some old buildings will disappear during the development, some events or people cannot be easily to forget because they create their own remarkable histories such as the artwork “6.4 party---mourn for Szeto Wah”. I love Mr. Chan’s artworks because they seem like history books.

Finally, I believe that some expressive artworks may come from artists’ daily experience even though they are ordinary and simple things, they possess their own stories. Admiring our surroundings may let us discover some interesting things.