Introduction of the artist:

Kingsley NG (China, Hong Kong)

Born in 1980, Hong Kong. Lives and works in Hong Kong. Selected solo exhibitions: 2011 Kingsley Ng, Osage Soho, Hong Kong / Selected group exhibitions: 2010 - 2011 Art vs. Art, Museum of Art, Hong Kong and Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai / 2010 Futurotextiles, Shanghai Expo / 2010 This is Hong Kong, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna / 2009 Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial, Tsunan, Japan / 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, Hong Kong / 2008 Digitalogue, Museum of Art, Hong Kong / 2006 NIME 06, Ircam – Centre Pompidou, Paris / 2003 (e)merge/(dis)separate, Interaccess Electronic Arts Centre, Toronto.

Introduction of works:

Moon gate, video installation, variable size, 2012

Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining Simple and Analysing Compound Characters) is one of the earliest Chinese dictionaries, written in the beginning of the second century in the Han dynasty, initially articulating the structures and meanings of more than 9,300 characters. Kingsley Ng’s recent installation, Moon-Gate, is a visual extension of shuowen jiezi focusing on one particular Chinese character – . It reflects upon the character in its traditional form, which can be pronounced as jian or xian, meaning respectively ‘space’ or ‘leisure’. It is combined by two characters of men (, door) and yue (, moon) to form a hieroglyphic composition. Linguistically and poetically in Chinese, a spatial or a leisure reality is only generated when moonlight permeates the interstice of a gate into an interior.

Through this allusive installation, the artist translates this Chinese character and constructs this ‘leisure reality’ in the gallery space, where the hallucination is made by the video projections that simulate light and shadow casted through tree branches and leaves, as well as from the natural skylight in the centre of the ceiling. As the leaves move gently, following a quiet breeze, a soundscape is shaped for the audience, somehow chimerical, in the immersive experience.

“Just like movements of meadow fields testifying forces of wind”, as the artist noted, “art reveals the unseen – making the forgotten or intangible a perceptible reality”. Although the installation fabricated the sensorial spectacles, the traditional proposition of the ‘leisure reality’ and harmony can only be appreciated temporally and will possibly dissolve again in the demands of everyday life today.