Amidst the unrelenting bustle of megalopolis Hong Kong, Chris Huen Sin Kan has built himself a quiet life, one which celebrates the quotidian and the fleeting. From his home and studio in leafy Yuen Long, removed from the beating pulse of Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui and Hong Kong Island’s financial hub, Huen paints the people, activities and landscapes that shape his daily life.
Huen’s large-scale oil paintings, a constellation of brushmarks often starring a cast of recurring characters including his wife Haze, son Joel, and dogs Balltz, MuiMui and Doodood, evolve organically and haphazardly; Huen forgoes underdrawings and sketches, and rather than paint from a photograph or from the scene itself, opts to eternalize the minute and the transient from feeling and memory. Huen’s technique, imbued with both deft abstraction and the hallmarks of traditional Chinese ink painting, involves layering one dab of paint over another until the pattern on the canvas perfectly echoes the spirit of the scene.
Chris Huen Sin Kan: Puzzled Daydreams
Simon Lee Gallery is proud to present Puzzled Daydreams, a solo exhibition by Hong Kong-based artist Chris Huen Sin Kan comprising, new paintings and works on paper. Huen’s largescale oil paintings are derived from observation of his own life, portraying quotidian experiences through a fresh set of aesthetic strategies that bring the domestic and surreal into compelling partnership.
