Adopting the imagery and history of Hong Kong as constant motifs throughout his oeuvre, the self-taught artist Chihoi documents the everchanging urban landscape of the city he grew up in. Publishing comic books since the late 1990s, Chihoi expanded his practice to encompass oil painting through the years. Dipped in muted shades of teal, pink, and yellow, the artist’s repetitive brushstrokes ripple around his subjects with a translucent quality which highlights the woven texture of linen.
Captured in an almost monochromatic pink haze, Halogen 16 - Tiger Balm Garden, commemorates the faded serenity of a bygone era. The work belongs to a series of oil paintings depicting scenes of Hong Kong between the 1960s and 1980s. For Chihoi, who grew up in the 1990s, it is a Hong Kong foreign yet strangely familiar, which he could only access through his personal collection of old projection slides. Projecting them onto a wall, the artist paints the images directly onto canvas, resulting in uniquely emotive and familiar renditions of the original images.
Mike Cussans, Tiger Balm Gardens, 1963
Image: Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Bristol Library (www.hpcbristol.net).Chihoi’s works have been exhibited locally and globally. The artist has notably held solo exhibitions at Gallery EXIT in Hong Kong: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (2022) and New Dust (2014) and has represented the gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong from 2019 to 2024. Chihoi’s works are featured in the collections of M+, Hong Kong, and Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA. The artist currently lives and works between Hong Kong and Taipei.
Condition Report
Description
View our Conditions of Sale.
Provenance
Gallery Exit, Hong Kong
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Antwerp, Grafixx Festival / De Studio, Insert a Page, 25 November - 27 November 2022, no. 20, n.p. (illustrated)
Paris, Lagon Revue, Plaine, 1 Dec 2022
Hong Kong, Gallery Exit, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 3 December 2022 - 1 January 2023
78
Halogen 16 - Tiger Balm Garden
signed and dated 'ch 22' lower right
oil on linen
24.5 x 33 cm. (9 5/8 x 13 in.)
Painted in 2022.
Estimate
HK$20,000 - 30,000
€2,300-3,500
$2,600-3,800
Kimberley Wong
Associate Specialist
20th Century & Contemporary Art, Hong Kong
+852 2318 2095
kimberleywong@phillips.com
New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art
Hong Kong Auction 4 October 2024