Stephen Wong brazenly describes himself as “grasping.” The panorama painter is regarding his urge for food for soaking up as a lot surroundings as imaginable all through lengthy and once in a while laborious hikes, which see him filling sketchbooks with impressions prior to translating them into luxurious art work.
Hong Kong, the 35-year-old’s house, serves as a relentless muse. Its distinctive topography — a mixture of mountains, seashores, islands and vertiginous cityscapes, all in shut proximity to each other — encourage fantastical interpretations of what he encounters alongside the way in which. He has created masses of those hanging works over the last decade, changing into considered one of town’s maximum celebrated and picked up fresh artists.
The pandemic technology has ushered in a brand new length of creativity for Wong. Not able to go back and forth ultimate 12 months, he as an alternative produced “A Grand Excursion in Google Earth” — large-scale art work depicting puts like Peru’s Machu Picchu and Japan’s Mount Fuji, the latter unfold throughout 5 canvases. With out leaving his studio, he used satellite tv for pc photographs from Google Earth and pictures combed from the web, in addition to his personal reminiscences of puts he had prior to now visited.
Video: Watch how Stephen Wong captures Hong Kong’s iconic MacLehose Path Credit score: CNN
Now, in his subsequent formidable enterprise, Wong has returned his consideration to Hong Kong, getting down to seize the 100-kilometer (62-mile) MacLehose Path. Famed for its sweeping perspectives of the territory’s dramatic nation-state, the stroll is damaged up into 10 levels, ranging in problem and ascent. Working east to west thru Hong Kong’s New Territories, it traverses iconic herbal landmarks such because the monolithic Lion Rock and the Tai Lam Chung reservoir, higher referred to as “Thousand Islands Lake.”
“I am involved in how I interpret nature, relatively than the accuracy of shooting the surroundings.”
Stephen Wong, panorama painter
Whilst the MacLehose undertaking is one Wong had lengthy thought to be embarking on, Hong Kong’s fast tempo of construction drove him to “grab the danger” and in the end get started paintings in September ultimate 12 months.
“I in reality have the sensation that the whole thing is converting,” he says. “I will be able to’t make certain that the whole thing may also be right here day after today.”
Bonhams’ Head of Trendy and Recent Artwork Asia Marcello Kwan, who curated the exhibition, describes Wong’s creative language as surreal and really easy to grasp. However the painter’s incorporation of first-person reminiscences additionally makes his taste very private, added Kwan, who thinks a contemporary flurry of job in Wong’s occupation — appearing on the Artwork Basel artwork honest and distinguished native galleries within the ultimate 18 months, all whilst zealously portray — comes thru in his more moderen works.
“His colour tone has modified totally in comparison to (his) early years, from extra earthy to extraordinarily colourful,” Kwan stated in a telephone interview — a shift he thinks “is a conclusion of his creative success of the previous 10 years.”
The MacLehose Path’s level 5. “In a panorama, the sky is an important component to control the entire feeling of the surroundings,” says Wong. Credit score: Courtesy Bonhams
Path affects
Mountaineering with Wong supplies perception into his meditative procedure. Each so continuously he stops for five to ten mins to briefly draw no matter catches his eye, one way he prefers to taking images.
“In this day and age, particularly with era, we now have such a lot of techniques of very appropriately shooting surroundings, by means of taking pictures on iPhones,” he says. “However it is too speedy for me.
“I love to memorize it by means of hand. Even supposing it isn’t that correct, it in reality is helping me perceive the surroundings extra deeply.”
Hairpin bend in Tai Mo Shan Mountain, Hong Kong Credit score: Chunyip Wong/E+/Getty Pictures
The Top Island Reservoir in Sai Kung Nation Park, subsequent to herbal hexagonal rock formations. Credit score: Chan Lengthy Hei/SOPA Pictures/LightRocket/Getty Pictures
The painter’s interpretation of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s best top. Credit score: Courtesy Bonhams
On the Shing Mun Reservoir, the beginning of the MacLehose Path’s 7th level, he fervently sketches Hong Kong’s best top, the three,140-foot Tai Mo Shan, in opposition to the skinny, wispy clouds. “I all the time like to precise the connection between the panorama and the sky,” he remarks, stating the distinction between the laborious mountains and cushy clouds.
Later within the hike he pauses to caricature tall, verdant timber that to start with appear unremarkable, given their ubiquity alongside the path. However Wong is attracted to how this actual cluster divides the surroundings in two — mountains to its left and the artifical reservoir and high-rises to the proper. “I in reality like (those) kinds of conversations,” he provides.
Clouds hold low in Wong’s depiction of the second one level of the MacLehose Path. Credit score: Courtesy Bonhams
Sergio Koo, a pal and collector of Wong’s paintings, joined him for roughly part of the MacLehose’s 10 levels. For Koo, climbing with the painter provides him the chance to find portions of the panorama that he, as an avid runner, generally speeds previous.
“It is attention-grabbing to look how he places (positive) stories within the portray,” Koo says over the telephone, selecting out points of interest that they had encountered that made their method into Wong’s art work: a lone tree and the jagged define of catchwater that the pair, at the side of some other pal, had walked alongside.
Typically, Koo runs previous the concrete channel, which marks the ultimate stretch of the 100-kilometer (62-mile) path, as briefly as imaginable.
“Now, even probably the most dull a part of the path turns into attention-grabbing.”
Against the highest left of the portray of the MacLehose Path’s level 10, the viewer can spot the jagged define of catchwater close to a blocky cluster of structures and Fortress Top. Credit score: Courtesy Bonhams
Development landscapes
Again in his studio, Wong recomposes portions of the path the usage of his sketches and reminiscences from the hike. He makes use of his creativeness to fill in the remaining.
Brilliant, colourful vegetables and contrasting colours depict the whole thing from undulating mountain levels to evocative crimson timber with midnight-blue tops. His portray of the Sai Kung peninsula, observed from the MacLehose’s fourth level, envisions clouds as cotton sweet mounds erupting in opposition to a mint inexperienced sky, offsetting a sundown that spills into the repetitious peach-colored brushstrokes of the lapping ocean.
Wong’s large-scale canvas of the MacLehose Path’s fourth phase. Credit score: Courtesy Bonhams
The sandy seashores of Sai Kung peninsula in Hong Kong. Credit score: Ian Hunter/EyeEm/Getty Pictures
In addition to incorporating dreamlike hues, Wong once in a while adjustments the orientation of key landmarks (just like the reservoir in level seven that looks to the east of Needle Hill, as an alternative of the west), including to the sensation of the imaginary rooted in fact.
“I am involved in how I interpret nature, relatively than the accuracy of shooting the surroundings,” Wong explains. “For me it is identical to taking part in Lego. You construct the panorama by means of compositions, traces and hues.”
Whilst his canvases are remarkably immersive, the inclusion of miniature folks — they’re depicted climbing, doing outside actions, like parachuting, and even portray — play “crucial position,” says Kwan, the curator.
“While you get nearer, you notice tiny, tiny persons are if truth be told within the art work,” he provides. “That is the most pretty section, for me.
Element shot of the MacLehose Path’s fourth phase. “I feel in nature, people may also be humbled… cured,” the painter says. Credit score: CNN/Stephy Chung
In his art work, folks may also be observed doing outside actions, like climbing and, on this element, parachuting. Credit score: CNN/Stephy Chung
“After all, the panorama is glorious. However in any case, I feel it is about people. So even though the persons are so tiny, each user within the image counts as an important component. It is about their adventure. Stephen is having a look at other folks, but additionally at himself as one of the vital members on this adventure.”
Watch the video above to look Stephen Wong at paintings.
