WONG HAU KWEI (HUANG XIAOKUI, B. 1946)

Wong Hau Kwei was born in Chongqing in 1946 and settled in Hong Kong in 1978. He graduated from Donghua University and worked in the textile industry. With the economy flourishing in the 1990s, he decided to change course and became a self-taught artist. Wong learned to paint from Huang Zhou and has spent almost a decade painting landscapes. Wong’s unique technique in his condensed lines and strokes distinguishes him from his contemporaries - his meticulous craftsmanship acts as though the entire painting is woven. He paints landscape with definite tonality that is metaphorically interwoven with subtle reminders of his past, almost like a textile needle worker. Wong often juxtaposes nature with modern elements of the society to create an equilibrium between the two polarities, as seen in the sailing boats along the dramatic coastline. A similar work received an award at the Hong Kong Biennial Exhibition in 2001, and is in the collection of the Hong Kong Museum of Art.