Tsang Chui-Mei: The Drawings

Tsang Chui-Mei (1972) is a very talented Hong Kong painter who graduated from the Department of Fine Art in the Chinese University of Hong Kong(CU). Tsang is an artist who entirely focuses on painting. From assembling the frame to pinning up a fabric, she is involved in the whole process of canvas making. By then, canvases mean a lot to Tsang, she revealed that she enjoyed creating ‘another space’ (we will discuss it later) on canvas because it is as spiritual as meditating.

Tsang got a Bachelor Degree of Art(B.A) in 1996 and Master Degree of Fine Art(M.F.A) in 2003 from CU. Research found that 30% contents of the B.A and M.F.A classes in average were Chinese Art and history, such as Chinese painting, artistic traditions in China and Daoist art. Tsang spent totally 4 to 5 years in CU to nurture her artistic sense which obviously consolidated her foundation of Chinese ink-like painting style and her belief in painting. In Tsang’s early creations, she began to build up personal expression in her art with determination.

Early period: 1998

Transporting Mindscapes Series (Fig.1) created during Tsang’s immature period was finished 2 years after her graduation from B.A. In this painting, there is a horizontal line and geometric angles. The line defines the boundary dividing the sky and earth, while the angles create dramatic tension. The human figure is located on the margins in the scene, creating a sense of insecurity. The orientation of the figure and other objects form invisible lines that add to the cohesiveness of the composition. Even Tsang believed trial and error would lead her to somewhere, still, she obviously had not yet learned to handle acrylic well. The brushstrokes are short and streaky, especially on the trees. She depicted the layer of the trees by diluting the same green colour in two very different tones - deep green and light green which create a long distance visual between the two rows of trees without anything in a middle. The shadow on the green shell-like object was not used properly to create the perspective of vegetation. In addition, textural differentiation is noticeably lacking. The texture of the green floor is the same as the ocean, which is the same as the yellow floor and chairs. However, this painting has already shown the favourite elements of Tsang, such as the confusing sense of space, inspiration from daily objects and vegetations.

After graduation: 2006-2010

During this period, Tsang completed a large amount of paintings that exemplify the Chinese ink-like style with acrylic. Her pictures are delicately rendered images of vegetation rather depicted with fast and wet brushstroke and grey tones. One of her paintings, Leisure series (Fig.2) shows her fascination with the space creation. She removed the horizontal line and portrayed the perspective by drawing the little window, spotlights, floors and chair around the huge plant. The chair on the floor in the lower right corner did not fully appear in order to create an illusion of ‘another space’ inside of the canvas. That increases audience curiosity about the tangible and abstract space. It is very hard to define whether indoor or outdoor atmosphere was Tsang depicting. The huge plant next to the window was giving an outside mood, but the chair on the floor and the spotlights on top of the plant were totally depicting an opposite side. In terms of subject matter, Tsang’s works are inspired by everyday objects mostly taken from personal experience, such as the chair at her studio and windows at her home.

Regarding her portrayal of vegetations, it was similar with Floral, bird and heart of the mirror (Fig.2) by Chinese painter Chao Shao-an who takes the theme to indefinite area by leaving the background completely blank, with bird staying on the plant. Both of them depicted the branches in bone-like shape which have thick and round joints. The soft and vivid brushstroke in the middle of branches and petals were their commonality. That could be drawn by using the same sort of trained brush skills required for Chinese ink painting. In composition, they tend to arrange the blossoming flowers on the top and right area of the picture too. Those points of likeness reveal the improvement as she was finishing the M.F.A at that period.

From grey tone to vibrant colour: 2011-2013

7 years after she left the college, Tsang began to work with vibrant colours instead of dull tones. She enhance her painting skill to the matureer level. She found that trial and error helps her to discover her own way of painting. After many times of trials, doing layers with different colours has became her favourite. Dry (Fig.4) has a variety of colours to create a dreamy green background, Tsang revealed the way she drawn it was using a few of primary colours with very thin layer in order to apply the mixture themselves on the canvas. For example, she would paint the thin layer of light blue colour first, then add another thin layer of yellow colour. As a result, you can see the green colour by the translucent colours mixing themselves on the canvas instead of on the palette. She created an uneven colour tone but also dreamlike style which is an uncommon skill and ingenuity.

New technique settled and from concrete to abstract: 2014-Present

Tsang started to add bamboos and fragmentary elements in her painting as an experimentation by 2011. She was fascinated with creating a geometrical negative space with masking tape, and fill it with single colour. In 2014, She largely used this skill in her another significant series. Once again, Tsang shows adoration of daily object as she can find a lot of abandoned bamboos around her studio and the fragment of glasses in Hollywood movies. The loads of disorganized straight orange lines in Void III (Fig.5) are the symbol of bamboos.. She depicted the moods of instability and change by arranging those bamboos together messily. Besides, she depicted the poetic and romantic sense on Shift (Fig.6) by creating a symbol of fragments. Meanwhile, she found peaceful moment when she was using this technique, as this is a high repetitive and simple process.

Comparing with Tsang’s early works with this period, Tsang seems to be going back to the old style which was filling up the canvas with barely two or three large area of high contrast colours. Though, the subject matter of painting is totally different now. Those human figure, fruits, vegetation and installation of indoor were entirely gone, only the single line remains to portray the mountain and rocks shape. Before she did that large change from concrete to abstract manner, she was profoundly inspired by the book The Unbearable Lightness of Life written by Milan Kundera. As a book with an open ending, it gave her lots of space for imagination. She found the vibe in between the clauses and transformed it into a painting. Tsang just expressed her source of inspiration honestly. Moreover, textural differentiation is apparently improving. The texture of the mountain and the rocks are rough and coarse enough with various layers of medium.

Tsang’s career has come a long way in the past two decade. She is a humble, patient and honest artist, who created the atmosphere on a painting along with her spirit. No one would doubt her passion of painting because she is serious enough to spend 3 to 5 years to explore the same skill or concept. In addition, she is spending over two decades on learning handling acrylic, and she is still learning with dedication. Even she claimed that the feeling of lost and insecure always surround her, but this situation actually happen to most of the artists in the world. Some of them may find those period of artworks were compellent. I am looking forward to see Tsang’s new series of creation after two years. Also she will find her new pattern of creation after a decade.

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Tsang Chui-Mei: The Drawings

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