Created By
Hong Wai
Lace calligraphy landscape sculpture
Curator
Luke Chapman
Hong Wai’s "界 (Jie - World)" is a masterclass in artistic rebellion and reconciliation-a work that would make the ancient literati either applaud or apoplectic, possibly both. By transforming lace into the very substance of calligraphic and landscape expression, Hong Wai subverts the masculine stronghold of Chinese ink traditions with a material historically coded as feminine, turning fragility into strength and ornament into language. This innovative technique is more than a technical feat; it is a manifesto that renders boundaries-between East and West, past and future, male and female-not just porous but obsolete. In "界," the world is remade as a space of multiplicity and contradiction, where cultural nostalgia and contemporary identity pulse side by side. Hong Wai’s sculpture is not merely an object to be viewed, but a terrain to be experienced-one that insists on the beautiful impossibility of being just one thing in a world that demands multiplicity.
This series involves interviewing Asian immigrants in Paris, asking them to choose a word that represents their life in the city. Hong Wai then transforms their private feelings into hardened voices through lace calligraphy, with each word representing a unique Parisian experience. 界 (Jie - World) Hong Wai folded the strokes of the characters for "界 (Jie - World)" into undulating mountain shapes. From a distance, the work appears as a landscape, but when viewed from above, the character 界 will emerge. The artwork allows viewers to perceive different truths depending on their visual perspective. Hong Wai’s "Lace Calligraphy Landscape Sculpture: 界 (Jie - World)" stands as a radical intervention in both material and meaning, fusing the ethereal delicacy of lace with the gravitas of Chinese calligraphy to create a sculptural landscape that hovers between tradition and transgression. In this work, Hong Wai invents a technique that hardens lace-long a symbol of feminine gentility-into a form capable of embodying the brushstrokes and spatial rhythms of literati painting, yet rendered in three-dimensional space. The result is a tactile terrain where the ancient language of ink is replaced by the intricate patterns of lace, simultaneously evoking the contours of mountains, rivers, and the written word. The sculpture’s pleated and layered surfaces invite the viewer to navigate its topography much as one would traverse a classical landscape scroll, yet here the journey is mediated through the lens of gender, memory, and cultural hybridity.
Created By
Hong Wai
Framed
85 x 60 cm | 33 x 24 in
25 cm | 10 in
2024
