80 /20? The Dark side of Aesthetic A Solo exhibition 80/20 at PMQ, Art Projects Gallery By Michelle Kuen Suet Fung Date: November 6th-23rd 2014 Written by Elaine Chau How to stand out among from those eye-candy liked art pieces in the current art world? Is it enough for artist to constantly staying in monotonous and linear style? Michelle Kuen Suet Fung recent solo exhibition- 80/20 clearly pointed out her vision. With slightly colorful and fantasy, childish painting style fusion the use of Chinese rice paper brought an entirely fresh visual presentation to life. Every piece of the show are linked to the appearance of animals. It is an obvious highlight of this exhibition. Animals relationship with humans is the unbreakable muse in local artist, Michelle Kuen Suet Fungs eyes. The shows name, 80/20, is also playing around with this concept: 80% of all marine waste is from the land. Only 20% is from the ocean. The data game still continued further more in questioning humans about marine lives in her artist statement. Michelles works mostly included animal element, which is nearly becoming her personal signature. The gallery space turned into a shelter for those hurting marine lives. Viewers even had the illusion of visiting an aquarium. An enormous shark surrounded with lot of colorful flotsams displayed in a rectangular frame. These flotsams are in different shapes, some like balloon while some reminded me of jellyfish.

Details of painting

Disregarding our universal impression to ocean world, the tone of this painting is unusually dark even with those varieties of hued objects. Comparing to fine art painting, Michelles work is not only about how realistic the characters are painted, further more, it is about merging her unique painting style. Another series of painting that continue with the hidden dark theme spot my eyes. They are all together four separating done Chinese painting which generate the same theme. If you are expecting any traditional Chinese painting from Michelle, this may disappoint you. However, counting on the innovation of blazing Chinese painting technique and her personal style, this work surely deserves a credit for her. Not only credit for her skills, but also for her idea on experimenting the possibility of shadow.

This particular work can be read critically in two parts- the entity and shadow. The entities of marine lives have beautiful and lovely finish touch. This just like represents the wonderful side of lively marine lives used to be. While for the shadow part, Michelle is daring to expose the cruel dying scene. No bleeding blood, no horror facial expression, rather, they died in a fading motion with highly aesthetic value. This juxtaposition clearly is a special intention of the artist-perfect the dying process. Putting an atrocious happening in a good-looking frame seems more valuable in artists eyes than straightforward composition. As a viewer, contrast is no doubt playing a higher level of presentation role than any too candid content. thus create a stronger tension to the viewers. 80/20 show had a significant role to Michelle; in fact, this is her first show in Hong Kong after staying in Vancouver for past two decades. Despite of the working environment encountered from a big switch, her works still revealed and continued with her exclusive style. On the other hand, this show is also bridging the academic institution and commercial gallery. (Michelle is currently studying for a Master of Visual Arts.) Merging two different natures of art exhibition- academic and commercial is challenging to deal with. The risky point is artists may lose their own color so as to satisfy expectations. Handling struggle between avant-garde and commercial art can be an overloading task. Being a young artist domain in Pop-Surrealism genre, experiencing experimental arts is a must. However, this requires mature art practice and sense, more, defining oneself in position is also another business. Reviewing Michelles previous exhibition; comics style with slightly childish touch is her marking. They projected more on graphic aspect, which is likely to be her talent and strength. Going back to 80/20 show, twists on style and technique are easily found, the content of 80/20 is more realistic than her previous works, which almost remind viewers those fairytale we used to listen in childhood.

More pieces from 80/20

This overall breakthrough is certainly worth for applauding. Effort in solidifying skills and visualizing her idea can be observed from this well-prepared exhibition. Discussion on way she accounted on marine lives issue, that particular painting consisted contrasting effect is no doubtfully standing out from others. This individual piece captured viewers attention, thus effectively brought out the addressing messages. It moved us to think deeply on what nature beauty are now facing. Using fading shadow effect can also raise mystery and, again, visually attracted focus point. Reading through artists blog entry, she mentioned popularity of decorative function in commercial art world, which hints the perspective of aesthetic and beauty value. In this 80/20 show, Michelle showed her standpoint -insisting oneself style while keeping an open mind for potential development which probably is the way for artists to deliver their ideas, or to survive in art field.