Stephen Wong openly describes himself as “greedy”. The landscaper is referring to his appetite for absorbing as much of the landscape as possible during long and sometimes arduous walks, which lead him to fill sketchbooks with prints before translating them into sumptuous paintings. Hong Kong, the home of the 35-year-old, serves as a constant inspiration.
Its unique topography – a mix of mountains, beaches, islands and dizzying cityscapes, all close together – inspires fantastical interpretations of what it encounters along the way. He has created hundreds of these landmark works over the past decade, becoming one of the city’s most celebrated and collected contemporary artists.
The pandemic era ushered in a new period of creativity for Stephen Wong. Unable to travel last year, he produced “A Grand Tour in Google Earth” – large-scale paintings depicting places like Machu Picchu in Peru and Mount Fuji in Japan, the latter spread across five canvases. Without leaving his studio, he used satellite imagery from Google Earth and photos scoured from the internet, as well as his own memories of places he had already visited.
Now, in his next ambitious venture, Stephen Wong has turned his attention to Hong Kong, setting out to capture the 100-kilometer (62-mile) MacLehose Trail. Famous for its panoramic views of the territory’s dramatic landscape, the hike is divided into 10 stages, varying in difficulty and ascent. Running east to west through the New Hong Kong Territories, it crosses iconic natural landmarks such as the monolithic Lion Rock and the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir, better known as the “Lake of a Thousand Islands”.
“I’m interested in how I interpret nature, not how accurately I capture the landscape.”
-Stephen Wong
The new series, which Wong debuted this month through the Bonhams auction house, includes 10 large canvases – one dedicated to each of the 10 stages of the trail – as well as eight smaller paintings and more than 30 works on paper. While the MacLehose project is a project Wong has long considered embarking on, Hong Kong’s rapid pace of development led him to “grab the chance” and finally start work in September of last year.
“I really get the feeling that everything is changing,” he says. “I can’t be sure that everything can be here tomorrow.” Bonhams’ head of modern and contemporary art in Asia Marcello Kwan, curator of the exhibition, describes Wong’s artistic language as surreal and very easy to understand.
But the painter’s incorporation of first-person memories also makes his style very personal, added Kwan, who believes a recent flurry of activity in Wong’s career – exhibiting at the Art Basel art fair and prominent local galleries over the past 18 months, while zealously painting – appears in his more recent works.
“His color tone has completely changed compared to (his) early years, from more earthy to extremely colorful,” Kwan said in a telephone interview – a change he believes is “a conclusion of his artistic achievement of the last 10 years.”
track impressions
Walking with Wong provides insight into his meditative process. Every now and then he stops for 5-10 minutes to quickly draw what catches his eye, a method he prefers to take pictures of. “Today, especially with technology, we have a lot of ways to capture landscapes very accurately, taking pictures on iPhones,” he says. “But it’s too fast for me. “I like to memorize it by hand. Even though it’s not that accurate, it really helps me understand the scenario more deeply.”
At the Shing Mun Reservoir, the start of the seventh leg of the MacLehose Trail, he fervently draws Hong Kong’s highest peak, the 3,140-foot Tai Mo Shan, against the thin, thin clouds. “I always like to express the relationship between the landscape and the sky”, he comments, highlighting the contrast between the hard mountains and the soft clouds.
Later in the walk, he pauses to sketch tall, verdant trees that at first seem unremarkable given their ubiquity along the trail. But Wong is drawn to the way this particular cluster divides the scene in two – mountains on the left and the artificial reservoir and skyscrapers on the right. “I really like (those) types of conversations,” he adds.
Sergio Koo, a friend and collector of Wong’s work, joined him for about half of the 10 MacLehose stages. For Koo, walking with the painter gives him the opportunity to discover parts of the landscape that he, as an avid runner, normally passes quickly.
“It’s interesting to see how he puts (certain) experiences into the painting,” says Koo over the phone, picking out sights they found in Wong’s paintings: a lone tree and the jagged outline of water that the pair, along with another friend, had walked. together. Normally, Koo passes through the concrete channel, which marks the last stretch of the 100-kilometer trail, as quickly as possible. “Now, even the most boring part of the trail becomes interesting.”
creating landscapes
Back in his studio, Wong recomposes parts of the trail using his sketches and memories of the hike. He uses his imagination to fill in the rest. Bright, vibrant greens and contrasting colors depict everything from undulating mountain ranges to evocative pink trees with dark blue tops.
His painting of the Sai Kung Peninsula, seen from the fourth stage of the MacLehose, envisions clouds like cotton candy mounds erupting against a mint green sky, offsetting a sunset that spills over into the repetitive peach-colored brush strokes of the ocean.
In addition to incorporating dreamlike tones, Wong sometimes changes the orientation of important landmarks (such as the reservoir on stage seven that appears east of Needle Hill rather than west), heightening the sense of imagery rooted in reality. “I’m interested in how I interpret nature, not how accurately I capture the landscape,” explains Wong. “For me it’s like playing Lego.
You build the landscape by compositions, lines and colors.” While his canvases are remarkably immersive, the inclusion of miniature people – depicted walking, doing outdoor activities such as skydiving or even painting – plays “an important role,” says Kwan, the curator. “As you get closer, you see tiny, tiny people actually inside the paintings,” he adds. “That’s the most beautiful part, for me.
Translated matter from CNN Style.
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