New technologies have a key role to play in expanding our perceptions and ways of seeing, says Danny Yung, whose exhibition Tree-Man opened at the Cattle Depot Artist Village yesterday.
Yung, who studied at the University of California, Berkley, and is founder of the avant-garde collective Zuni Icosahedron, has always been seen as an experimental or alternative artist, tags he says make it easy to dismiss the depth of what he is trying to achieve. Alternative art is more than non-mainstream work, he says: it offers ways for society to move forward and find better ways to see, think and relate.
Yung's exhibition at 1A Space comprises two 2.4-metre by 3.6-metre paintings. The Past and The Present: Tree and Forest takes an ancient Chinese painting as its foundation. The other, Still and Action: Individual and the Masses, is based on an image from the July 1 demonstration. Both draw on digital technology.
Take the picture of the tree. The image is shrunk to form a pixel (the basic unit of composition on a computer screen), doctored using computer software and then repeated over and over to create the picture. Looking at it you see the macroscopic and microscopic ways in which the tree is entwined in the forest.
The same goes for the July 1 demonstration picture. Close up, each pixel is of a mass of people. These join together to create a larger picture of a figure within the crowd.
'The composition of the picture has changed because the tools have changed. If you can create a new dimension, then you have to question where you stand,' said Yung.
While technology can be used to expand people's perceptions, he said it should not be used blindly. An understanding of the tools of technology, how they have evolved and how we relate to them is essential.
Yung's business card is packed with titles and directorships. He is a member of a dozen art and cultural boards, which helps explain why this is his first solo exhibition in 20 years. His next big project will be to create huge Mao murals made of grass on the embankments leading from Chek Lap Kok to Central. He had hoped to do it this year, but government bureaucracy held him back. He expects to spend two years dealing with the red tape in order to get permission to create his Mao portraits, but says it will be a battle worth fighting.
'There is a lot of decorative art in Hong Kong, but no public art. You need to have works that reflect what the public is thinking - something that goes beyond the superficial.'
Tree-Man is at 1A Space, Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road. To Kwa Wan, Kowloon until November 28.
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