1996.
When you live in a high-rise building where the flats offer limited space you have to adjust to the given area in order to do art. This will have an effect on the way you think about what art piece to do and the way to produce it. This is what happened to me in my first year in Hong Kong.
Living in a somewhat luxurious flat in South Horizons shared with another couple made me think of ways to start painting. I was in a way lucky that my wife and the couple we shared the flat with were all professional office employees who worked from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. It means that the whole flat is mine within the span of time that they were away. What I did was organized a way to make the most of the space and time I had then.
Before anything else, and aside from going around to see all of Hong Kong with my wife and friends on weekends, I managed to prioritize visits to art galleries, to museums and locate all the art supplies stores in the city. It was then that I started collecting my art materials.
I was happy to start the first ever oil on canvas painting that I did in Hong Kong. The title was NEOPHYTE, a four-piece painting in modular composition. The idea behind it was all explained here. Later NEOPHYTE became my entry to the first Sovereign Art Prize art competition in 2004.
The flat where we lived has a carpeted sala and I have to do a routine of covering the whole floor with newspapers to start painting. I painted by placing the canvasses on the floor and viewed the art piece from a distance by climbing up the sofa for a better angle.
It was one of my most relaxed and convenient way of doing art despite the limited space because I have the refrigerator and the TV within reach.
I didn't bought an easel then for the reason that space in Hong Kong is very limited and besides there is no more room to store it. So each day that 5 p.m. approaches I started tidying-up the place and kept my four pieces canvas boards in a slim but safe space.
Part of those early obstacles that I have to deal with was the odor of the oil paint. It was good that the bathroom and toilet, the place where I usually placed the artworks for drying, has an exhaust fan. This has helped to minimize the strong odor.
With all these considerations came the birth of a modular type of art pieces that were designed to adjust and blend with the limited wall areas that high-rise and densely populated cities are so typical of. This concept is clearly explained in "BUY ONE, TAKE MORE."
In this first makeshift studio I had, I experienced some sort of solitude and fulfillment especially when I was able to complete NEOPHYTE. Ironically, though, it was some sort of a retreat to give me space to reflect and come up with the idea behind this painting which was a result of a lingering problem about a culture being perpetuated by people so involved in Greek and Roman-lettered societies. I was involved in it in the past and this is the reason why I started A FRATMAN'S OASIS
When you live in a high-rise building where the flats offer limited space you have to adjust to the given area in order to do art. This will have an effect on the way you think about what art piece to do and the way to produce it. This is what happened to me in my first year in Hong Kong.
Living in a somewhat luxurious flat in South Horizons shared with another couple made me think of ways to start painting. I was in a way lucky that my wife and the couple we shared the flat with were all professional office employees who worked from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. It means that the whole flat is mine within the span of time that they were away. What I did was organized a way to make the most of the space and time I had then.
Before anything else, and aside from going around to see all of Hong Kong with my wife and friends on weekends, I managed to prioritize visits to art galleries, to museums and locate all the art supplies stores in the city. It was then that I started collecting my art materials.
I was happy to start the first ever oil on canvas painting that I did in Hong Kong. The title was NEOPHYTE, a four-piece painting in modular composition. The idea behind it was all explained here. Later NEOPHYTE became my entry to the first Sovereign Art Prize art competition in 2004.
The flat where we lived has a carpeted sala and I have to do a routine of covering the whole floor with newspapers to start painting. I painted by placing the canvasses on the floor and viewed the art piece from a distance by climbing up the sofa for a better angle.
It was one of my most relaxed and convenient way of doing art despite the limited space because I have the refrigerator and the TV within reach.
I didn't bought an easel then for the reason that space in Hong Kong is very limited and besides there is no more room to store it. So each day that 5 p.m. approaches I started tidying-up the place and kept my four pieces canvas boards in a slim but safe space.
Part of those early obstacles that I have to deal with was the odor of the oil paint. It was good that the bathroom and toilet, the place where I usually placed the artworks for drying, has an exhaust fan. This has helped to minimize the strong odor.
With all these considerations came the birth of a modular type of art pieces that were designed to adjust and blend with the limited wall areas that high-rise and densely populated cities are so typical of. This concept is clearly explained in "BUY ONE, TAKE MORE."
In this first makeshift studio I had, I experienced some sort of solitude and fulfillment especially when I was able to complete NEOPHYTE. Ironically, though, it was some sort of a retreat to give me space to reflect and come up with the idea behind this painting which was a result of a lingering problem about a culture being perpetuated by people so involved in Greek and Roman-lettered societies. I was involved in it in the past and this is the reason why I started A FRATMAN'S OASIS
