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Hazy Recollections

Husband & Wife Exhibition

Works by Dai Dai, Shuai Mei

Vernissage: 18 May 2006,   6:30pm - 8:00pm
Exhibition Continues: 19 May 2006 - 7 June 2006

Main Gallery, 21-31 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong

Schoeni Art Gallery is delighted to present our latest exhibition Hazy Recollections on 18 May 2006 that will present the works of a dynamic pair of artists who are married in thought and artistic achievement through a fundamental partnership who are as at home on the canvas as they are in life.

Ebbing and flowing between modernity and antiquity, Shuai Mei merges the contradictory sides of the modern woman into her willowy figurative representations. Aptly dressing her figures in the soft fabrics of modern clothing and classical costume, sensual delight ushers the viewer in through the closed doors of the female boudoir.

Alluding to conversation, Shuai Mei's women flirt with coy reticence as they bask in the luminescent glow produced by the shards of natural sunlight that seep into the open courtyards. An implicit sexuality is whimsically drawn into her scenes as the viewer is invited to glance furtively at her figure's tiny hands and feet that shy away from direct view. In keeping with the aesthetic used to traditionally represent the Oriental female, the artist indicates temporality by her choice of costume and furniture style and motif, whilst she hints towards the decorous nature of external accessory.

Deploying screens, long winding paths, windows open and closed, and mirrors symbolically to evoke the Freudian subconscious the secretive and indirect nature of a demure feminine sensibility is communicated with suggestion and agility. Shuai Mei's figures are lean and supple, poised in perfect stature to evoke a nostalgic and idealized memory of days yonder. Shuai Mei wields strength of emotion in her use of egg tempera on canvas through sentiment and her acute sensitivity to contrast, form and facial expression; her desire to remember the contradictions inherent between memory and time imbues her scenes with melancholy and romanticism.

Dai Dai's personages visually echo Shuai Mei's aesthetic, and his demure sculptures are inspired by his wife's canvases. The dainty form of his figures belie this artist's technical fortitude and refined aesthetic. Combining traditional method with his own personal vision, fundamental idiosyncracies within Dai Dai's chosen forms appear to drape over the unyielding matter of his choice of material - his works are an illusion of permanence achieved by rendering fleeting emotion into a motionless distillation of the movement of time.

Departing from his wife's use of the suggestive force of conversation as a motif, Dai Dai's figures breathe into their solitude with comfort - there is nothing lonely about his female forms. Whistful playfulness stares out with a woebegone beauty, and they are at once contemplative and beseeching. Dai Dai received his formal training at the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts and the sophistication of his technique in mixed media and the sculptural medium shines through with elegance.

Written by Alexandra Hamlyn

A catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition. Please click here for more details.
For an interesting article about the couple, please click here.