A Rhythm of Landscape : A solo exhibition by WAI Pong-yu
《山河變奏》韋邦雨個人展覽

May 17 - June 10, 2021

Artist Reception: May 28 (Fri), 4 - 8 pm

Grotto Central - 2302, 23/F, Car Po Commercial Building, 18-20 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong

11am - 7 pm, Monday - Saturday (Closed on Sundays and public holidays)
Viewing by appointment: info@grottofineart.com

Artist Statement 

Wai Pong-yu craves a distant dimension which he can call home. Stretching along a zone of extended present from then to now, his empathy visualizes the invisible tethering between himself and the segregated life form. Each undulation echoes with the flow in his contemplation. In his teens, he would look at the mountain outside his window. To the left, rose the wall of his building. Falling rain would drift from behind its vertical edge, like a slowly drawn curtain to form a gauzy film covering the mountain. As he watched the woods quietly, fleecy mists breathed out from the serene forest green.  In the vastness of an intrinsic grey found in the hazy mountain and the flow of lines, his intuition whispers to conjure up ancestral spirits who might see an entire territory as home. The conversation between mountain and rainfall might tell the emotional changes of people from different times.

The political vagaries of Hong Kong have been shaping our social and imaginative landscape every day over the past several years. I recall an online article about a Russian poet introduced by Hong Kong poet, Waitong Liu. Osip Emilevich Mandelstam wrote in 1921:

In the courtyard, washing up, night,

a sky rich with coarse stars. 

Starlight like salt on an axe-head,

the full barrel frosting with ice.

The gates: locked, and stern,

frank, open soil all around —

no foundation anywhere, I think,

purer than the truth of fresh canvas. 

Like salt, a star melts in the barrel,

ice-cold water gone blacker,

and death tidier, misery saltier,

and soil more truthful, more frightening.

I cleanse my troubled mind in my quiet and freezing studio in the outskirts of my warring city. When a pen can be wielded like a voracious soul-eater axe or scepter, the black ink fills the paper to the brim like a series of shadowy onslaught by an unscrupulous kakistocracy. The submerged shimmering starlight in the dark water, and the piercing starlight above the sky then puncture the gloominess of evil and fear. These aging and charred pages offer us eyes with which to look back while heading towards darkness with equanimity.

1 Osip Emilevich Mandelstam, Complete Poetry of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam, Trans. Burton Raffel and Alla Burago(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973), 123-24.

韋邦雨渴望在遠方的一個歸宿。由過去至現在，他冀望寫出他與某種若隱若顯的生命形式之間的微妙連結。線條起伏，與思緒流動相互呼應。想起少年時窗外的那座山，大廈的一邊擋住了山勢向左延伸。每當下雨時，彷彿一道窗簾從左邊垂下，輕輕掩蓋了山。靜觀林間，墨綠山色吞吐出雲霧，浮嵐的線條是純灰色的，像平蕪一般一望無際。對此，他輕聲召喚著祖先的靈魂，他們的世界不分畛域，四野都可以為家。山與雨水之間的對話，像訴說著人們在時代變幻裏的情感變化。

過去數年，香港的政治氣候變幻莫測，社會景象日新月異，超越想像。想起了香港詩人廖偉棠在網上介紹一位俄羅斯詩人的詩，是曼德爾施塔姆《我在屋外的黑暗中洗滌》：

我在屋外的黑暗中洗滌

天空燃燒著粗糙的星星，

而星光，斧刃上的鹽。

寒冷溢出水桶。

大門鎖著，

大地陰森如其良心——

我想哪裡也找不到

比這清新畫布更純粹的真理。

星鹽在水桶裡溶化，

凍水漸漸變黑，

死亡更純粹，不幸更咸，

大地更移近真理和恐懼。（黃燦然譯）

我在紛擾動盪的外圍，靜靜地在冷冰冰的工作室內洗滌思緒。幹硬的筆端彷似任意宰割生靈的斧刃、權杖，溢出了的墨水，是既黑暗又昏昧的政治，黃鐘毀棄，瓦釜雷鳴。那是水中的黑暗，是天上的黑夜；點點的浮光和星星，劃破了籠罩一切的惡與恐懼。一片片舊得快要霉掉、要去自焚的紙頁，賦予了一雙從容走向黑暗再回頭反觀的眼睛。