Between Breaths: Raymond Fung

About

His new series, ‘Breathing’ gives voice to Fung’s environmental concerns and is a complex and abstract work that actualises the notion of breathing both in process and ideology. Fung sees beyond Hong Kong’s skyscrapers and dedicates his works to the local landscape of the city and its captivating colours and textures. Deviating from traditional ink methods, Fung experiments with rich coloured pigments and introduces contemporary materials to the surface of his Xuan (Chinese rice) papers. Fung’s many layers of water, ink and pigment, and are overlaid with fine plastic films, and over a period of time the ink and pigment are massaged, allowing them to breathe, whilst patiently waiting for the cracks to appear on the surface as they dry. The resulting paintings are textured and multi-layered, glimmering and shining with mineral pigments and splashes of colour, over laid upon the underlying ink.

With his architect’s sense of space and composition, and the emotion that exudes from brush and ink, Fung’s tall, narrow polyptychs draw the eye from one end to another- a rhythmic momentum that creates ‘windows’ in space through which we can view his imagined landscapes.