Clifford Chance

LOVE: United in Pride

The Hong Kong Arcus Pride Art 2023 exhibition showcases the artwork of eight emerging artists from LOVE, an LGBTQ+ focus artist collective based in Hong Kong. The exhibition was curated by Kalen Wing Ki Lee, in collaboration with Fiona Ho and Natalie Ng from Odds and Ends.

Established in 2022, Odds and Ends is a contemporary art gallery in Hong Kong that showcases local and international emerging artists, with a focus on Asian diasporic artists. The mission of the gallery is to nurture new talents through a rigorous exhibition program and promote cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Curatorial Statement by Kalen Wing Ki Lee (He/ Him)

It was December 2021. I was conducting a visiting fellowship in San Francisco. I was greeted and moved by many beautiful encounters in the LGBTQIA+ communities. Artists, curators and art administrators work in a united and amicable manner for the queer communities regardless of their genders, cultural backgrounds and sexual preferences. There was this calling: it is imperative to work for the community regardless of where you are and who you are. This compelled us to found LOVE, an artist collective based in Hong Kong serving the LGBTQIA+ and queer-friendly communities.

For this year’s Pride Month, in June 2023, we are working with Odds and Ends gallery. It is not accidental, perhaps serendipitous. LOVE debuted at the Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong 2022 where we met Odds and Ends. It was love at first sight. We respect each other: vision, taste, and charisma. The exhibition we present here - LOVE at Odds and Ends, exemplifies our commonalities: a group exhibition of emerging queer artists from Hong Kong, Asia and beyond, and a tasteful selection of contemporary arts to redefine what artmaking means to us and the communities.

Artists and artworks that we present in this exhibition are diverse. We have worked with 8 artists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and the UK. The artists are CIS male and female, gender non-binary and one who is bravely transitioning. The artistic practices include photography, painting, sculpture, literature and mixed media. Subject matters range from self-expression, identity formation, exploration of same-sex relationships, to what and how cultural and societal milieux have imprinted on us. The selected artwork, we hope, is loving, refreshing and empowering.

Lots of LOVE. x

LEE Wing Ki (b.1981) is an artist-researcher based in Hong Kong. His artistic practice lies between documentary photography, artistic and archival research, media archaeology and a contemporary take on analogue photographic practice. His research interests includes photographic practices in the East-Asian context, post-photographic practice and critical digital humanities. His photography projects have been exhibited in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Latvia, Taiwan, UK and the US. He read history of art at the University of Hong Kong and received an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, supported by a British Chevening Scholarship. He is the recipient of the Lee Hysan Foundation – ACC Fellowship (2020) awarded by the Asian Cultural Council Hong Kong. In 2021, he founded LOVE, an artist-collective working for the queer and gender nonbinary art communities in Hong Kong. LOVE debuted at the Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong 2022 followed by LOVE+: Awakenings, supported by Gay Games Hong Kong 2023. Lee is currently an Assistant Dean (Research), at the School of Creative Arts, an Assistant Professor in photography at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University; and a visiting researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image, London South Bank University.

Wong Ka Ying (b. 1990) is an artist-curator and writer based in Hong Kong. She received her BFA degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2013 and a M.Phil. in Visual Arts from the Hong Kong Baptist University in 2021. She is currently pursuing her PhD degree in Cultural Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

A keen observer of the art community and society, Wong critically reflects on the various social, cultural, and gender issues today through a wide range of media, from performance to social media platforms. Wong is passionate about writing, curating and art education. She has participated in a range of seminars, panel discussions and talks, actively engaging with a range of communities and art lovers.

In 2016, she formed the first female artist duo “COME INSIDE” with Hong Kong artist Mak Ying Tung as a way to attack the art world.

Nicholas Wong is the author of Crevasse (Kaya Press, 2015), and Besiege Me (Noemi Press, 2021), and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. He is also the recipient of the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize. He has contributed to projects by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Manchester International Festival. He currently translates poetry by contemporary Taiwanese poet Sun Tzu-Ping.

Nicholas has a background in English poetry writing, but the dimension of the page starts to bore him. He attempts to explore ways to creatively "translate" his own works into visual mediums.

Glo Chan Cheuk-yan is a graduate of the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, and she currently lives in Hong Kong. Her practice is inspired by a sense of alienation from the world. She likes to observe from a distance and capture mundane moments in life with photography, moving images, and printmaking. In her art, she expresses her thoughts and experiences with delicacy. She received the “HKOP Award in Printmaking” in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea.

Wing Sum Sammi Mak, was born and raised in Hong Kong and is currently based in London. She completed her Masters Degree in Fine Arts Painting at the University of the Arts London (Camberwell) in 2022 and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University in 2018. Her latest solo presentation in Hong Kong Art Central 2023 was featured in the Financial Times and other local news article. She won the HKOP Award in Printmaking 2020-2021, and participated in an artist residency at Hong Kong Open Printshop (2020-2021). She exhibited Dear Universe, a solo printmaking exhibition at the Hong Kong Open Printshop after her residency in 2021.

Recent exhibitions include: Hong Kong Affordable Art Fair 2022; Highlights of 2022 Graduates in London (Liliya Art Gallery, 2022); This Art Exhibition (Espacio Gallery, London, 2022); Up Close – Hollywood Road II, (by Nan Fung Group’s “In Time Of” program and MUSTHAVEKEYS, Hong Kong, 2021); Pressing On (HKOP, 2019); The New Art Now Exhibition, (HKBU with Hong Kong Art Basel, 2019). Her works are privately collected across Hong Kong, UK, Portugal, China and the US.

After graduating from Hong Kong Baptist University's Academy of Visual Arts in 2017, Hui pursued a Masters Degree in Metalsmith at Tainan National University of Arts. In his research, he focuses on creating objects and small sculptures with “raising and sinking” (forging) techniques and mould making. He explores the relationship between the one and the multiple, and how uniqueness can be discovered under repetitive production.

Raising and sinking is a basic technique to shape sheet metal into a 3D form by using different shapes of anvils (鍛造鉆) and hammers, repeatedly hammered onto the metal sheet. The hammer marks left behind are like finger prints - they tell the stories of how the form is created, and sometimes reveal the personality of the creator. Although the outcome is always a hollow utensil, it holds a unique spirit.

Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, M.D., otherwise known as Dr. Deyn, is the founder and CEO of PULSE Social Enterprise, a pan-Asian network of lifestyle clinics and services. He is also a research physician at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. PULSE’s mission is to promote and provide excellence in standards of care and education in lifestyles medicine, HIV and co-infections, as well as normalizing sexual wellbeing and actively engaging in the formulation of public health policy, with the aim of eradicating the HIV burden across the region.

Dr. Deyn is responsible for the overall management and operations of PULSE Clinic International, PULSE Tech and Innovation and PULSE Gallery. Dr. Deyn was part of two previous group exhibitions, “Sex and Spirituality” in Vienna (May 2022) and “KinkyBKK” in Bangkok (September 2022). Besides recognition for his work in acrylic on paper and canvas, Dr. Deyn is known for his art curation of art exhibitions at PULSE Galleries. In addition, he leads the marketing team and its art direction at PULSE Clinic, where the graphics used on the website are recognized in their own right for their evocative and educational style, and for his interior design of the PULSE Clinics and PULSE Galleries.