I'm a city girl at heart: always have been and always will be. I like the activity, movement, the light and colour of these confined spaces. I like the danger involved in jaywalking across busy intersections, hearing snippets of someone else's conversation as I walk down narrow streets and discovering value-for-money eateries tucked into alleyways. That's what Hong Kong is to me. I fell in love with it from the moment I left the airport and spied this.
Well not this exactly since this particular scene is from the opposite bank of Kowloon. But if you squint, you can see what I call "capsule living." Hundreds of households layered vertically - reduced to tiny squares of shimmering light. How could someone possibly recreate this without the aid of photography? I tried sketching it but it became a complete mess.
That's where Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中) comes in. His retrospective is currently on display at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, separated thematically into 'Dots' 'Lines' and 'Cubes.' I love how his abstraction is so effective and so representative of the layers of this vibrant metropolis.
- The Dentist
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