Celebrating 45 Years of Championing Hong Kong Art

As Alisan Fine Arts unveils the final presentation of its 45th-anniversary programme, Then and Now, the gallery is pleased to present Time Voyager, a curatorial meditation on the evolution of Hong Kong art, told through the lens of the gallery itself. Ten artists, one city, four decades of change: the exhibition brings together distinguished contemporary Hong Kong artists whose relationship with Alisan Fine Arts reaches back to its founding in 1981. Brought into dialogue, their works trace the transformation of the city’s artistic landscape, offering a perspective that illuminates the present moment while resisting the fleeting currents of fashion.

Time Voyager is, in this sense, not so much a looking back as a return, but a homecoming to the rooms where these practices first took root. The ten artists assembled here are not strangers to the gallery; their histories have grown alongside its own, from the inaugural presentation at Société Générale in The Landmark, Central, and the early presentations devoted to Hong Kong art in 1983 and 1984, among them Contemporary Vision of 3 Hong Kong Artists, featuring Hon Chi-fun, and a solo exhibition for Lui Shou-kwan, pioneer of the New Ink Movement, to the landmark Lui Shou-kwan & His School at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1995, and onward through the embrace of ink installation and sculpture in the new millennium. To walk through the exhibition is to retrace a shared history, one in which Alice King’s early instinct for the quiet conversations between tradition and the contemporary has proven remarkably prescient. The works on view carry that inheritance forward, each bearing the trace of a relationship measured not in seasons but in decades.

This final chapter of Then and Now thus completes a larger whole. Where Now, opening at Alisan Atelier in December, gathers a younger generation whose conceptual inquiries mark a departure from academic tradition, Time Voyager returns to the artists who first defined the gallery’s voice, and who continue to renew it. Together, the two presentations bear witness to a consequential shift in Hong Kong’s art history, from the ink-rooted sensibilities of the 20th century to the expanded terrain of the present. The gallery now frame this passage through the very artists who journeyed through it: for forty-five years, Alisan Fine Arts has not simply documented the evolution of Hong Kong art but has helped to write the city’s unfolding story.

Venue
Alisan Fine Arts, 21/F Lyndhurst Tower, 1 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong

Artists
Fang Zhaoling, Koo Mei, Lui Shou-kwan, Wucius Wong, Hon Chi-fun, Kum Chi-keung, Man Fung-yi, Kan Tai-keung, Eddie Lui, Mok yat-san

Exhibition Dates
18 November 2026 – 30 January 2026

Gallery Hours
Monday – Saturday | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Website
www.alisan.com.hk

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/alisanfinearts/

Contact
info@alisan.com.hk

10 Artists’ Styles and Biographies

Fang Zhaoling (1914-2006)

A renowned Hong Kong painter, Fang studied under Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), a towering master of modern ink art, and also apprenticed with Zhao Shao-ang (1905-1998), a leading representative of the second generation of the Lingnan School. Inspired by these predecessors, Fang developed a highly individual freehand language—approaching Abstract Expressionism in its vigour—across a wide range of subjects that evoke her enduring love for her homeland. Her brush-and-ink are rich and forceful; her simplified, emblematic figures became a signature of her mature style. These works remain faithful to the literati lineage while, through their attention to contemporary life and environment, achieve a compelling contemporaneity, as what on view in our exhibition. In recent years, many international art museums have mounted solo exhibitions for her, among them the Ashmolean Museum, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Fuji Art Museum in Tokyo, and Asia Society Hong Kong. Her works have likewise been featured in group exhibitions at M+, Hong Kong, in Canton Modern, and at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, in Women in Art: Hong Kong. Her paintings are widely held in the collections of major art museums around the world, including British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Princeton University Art Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art, and University Museum and Art Gallery of University of Hong Kong.

Hon Chi-fun (1922-2019)

A prominent Hong Kong painter, Hon Chi-fun was the first Hong Kong artist to receive the Rockefeller III Scholarship (1969). He is best known for his “Circle” series of oil paintings and prints. In contrast to his abstract works, Hon’s oil paintings on fibreboard—created in the 1960s alongside friends in the art world during his leisure hours, sketching outdoors in the suburbs of Hong Kong—are exceedingly rare. The University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong also held a solo exhibition Hon Chi-fun: Early Landscapes on Board (2013). Other important retrospective exhibitions include those at Hong Kong Museum of Art, Asia Society Hong Kong, and the CityU Gallery at City University of Hong Kong. In recent years, Hon’s paintings were also exhibited in the famous group exhibition Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination at M+ Hong Kong. Hon’s works are also collected by institutions around the world, including National City Bank of Chicago, Deutsche Bank Hong Kong, Wing On Bank Hong Kong, Hong Kong MTR, Hongkong Land, British American Tobacco Hong Kong, and Lehman Brothers.

Kai Tai-keung (b. 1942, lives in Hong Kong)

Hong Kong’s preeminent graphic designer and a distinguished ink painter, Kan Tai-keung is celebrated for a singular visual language that unites traditional Chinese landscape painting, calligraphy, and design. A pupil of Lui Shou-kwan, he has brought exceptional refinement to both his graphic and painterly practices—most publicly evidenced by his design of the Bank of China logo. In his ink paintings, the dynamic line of calligraphy converges with such natural motifs as mountains, waterfalls, and clouds, achieving a harmonious synthesis of art forms. His oeuvre traces a distinctive evolution from early geometric landscapes to the textual landscapes he has pursued since 2000, each body of work reflecting the artist’s inner landscape—the central vision on view in this exhibition. Recent solo exhibitions include at China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, 2025, and University of Hong Kong Libraries, 2024. In 2022-2023, his works were featured in the significant exhibition By the People: Creative Chinese Characters, Hong Kong Museum of Art, and currently, on view in Guangdong Museum of Art’s By the People 2, and Hong Kong M+’s ongoing exhibition Shanshui: Echoes and Signals. Kan’s artworks are housed in over 20 museums worldwide, including Ashmolean Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Art Society of International Monetary Fund, National Art Museum of China, Guangdong Museum of Art.

Koo Mei (b. 1934, lives in Canada)

Koo Mei began her public life as a celebrated singer and film actress in 1950s–1960s Hong Kong, before turning to painting professionally in the 1970s. She studied under several masters of 20th-century Chinese art, including Zhao Shao’ang, Hu Nianzu, and Lui Shou-kwan, and went on to establish herself as a painter of singular vision. Koo is best known for her landscape paintings, in which the traditions of Lingnan painting are quietly married to a modern realism. Following her move to Vancouver in the mid-1980s, the city’s snow-capped mountains became a recurring subject of her work. A master of layered ink washes and subtle tonal gradation, she conjured images at once dramatic and softly veiled, her mountains and rivers rendered with a grandeur both majestic and deeply felt. In 1977, she was honoured with the Hong Kong Urban Council Art Award. Her work has been presented in close to 30 solo exhibitions across Asia and North America, among them The Cloud and Mist Weaver at the University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong (2009), and the landmark group exhibition Crossing the Pacific: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2017). Her paintings are held in numerous museum and institutional collections, including Utah State University, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong, Bank of America, Bank of Australia, CITI Bank, and Hutchison and Shaw Brothers, Hong Kong.

Kum Chi-keung (b. 1965, lives in Hong Kong)

Kum Chi Keung is among Hong Kong’s most important sculptors, celebrated for sculptures and installations fashioned in the form of birdcages. Working across stainless steel, bamboo, and acrylic boxes, he engages with social, cultural, and environmental concerns through a vocabulary at once formally precise and quietly provocative. His Big Bird sculpture, commissioned by Hong Kong International Airport, is permanently installed in the waiting lounge. In recent years, he has turned to ink on rice paper, revisiting the traditional literati motif of “pine and bamboo” through a contemporary lens. The present exhibition marks the first occasion on which the artist has publicly shown works on paper in dialogue with his sculpture. Over the course of his career, Kum has participated in more than 150 solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, among them Art Personalised: Masterpieces from the HKMoA Collection (Phase IV), Hong Kong Museum of Art (2025); Sculpture Art Exhibition, Asia Society Hong Kong (2020); and China 8, a travelling exhibition in Germany (2015). His work is held in numerous institutional and corporate collections, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, K11 Art Foundation, Deutsche Bank, Bank of China, Henderson Land, and MGM Macau.

Eddie Lui (b. 1947, lives in Hong Kong)

Eddie Lui is among Hong Kong’s most distinguished contemporary ink painters, having studied under Lui Shou-kwan, Wucius Wong, and Jon A. Prescott (1925–1994). His most distinctive works take nature as their theme, bridging the realms of ink painting and graphic design. Initially known for the vibrant coloration of his early years, Lui turned his focus in later works to plants and animals, experimenting with crayons, pastels, watercolors, and ink to achieve textural effects and to illuminate the singular forms of organic subjects, as exemplified by An Eccentric in Ink (2025). Recent significant exhibitions include Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination at M+, Hong Kong (2024-2025), and Shenzhen Art Museum Inaugural Project: The Glory of Ink Painting: From Lingnan School of Painting to Greater Bay Area Contemporary Ink Painting Exhibition (2024). Lui’s work is held in collections worldwide, among them the Douro Museum, Portugal; the Museum of Modern Art at St. Petersburg State University; the Muzeul de Arta Cluj-Napoca, Romania; the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation, Malaysia; the International Printmaking Centre of National Taiwan Normal University; the Guangdong Museum of Art; the Hong Kong Museum of Art; the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong; the Hong Kong Jockey Club; the Hong Kong MTR; and Hongkong Land.

Lui Shou-kwan (1919-1975)

Lui Shou-kwan is widely recognised as the pioneer of Hong Kong’s New Ink Movement and one of the most consequential figures in the modernisation of Chinese ink painting. His students include many of Hong Kong’s most celebrated artists, among them Kan Tai-keung, Koo Mei, Eddie Lui, and Wucius Wong. He is renowned for his singular Zen paintings, in which Chinese philosophical thought is interwoven with Western symbolism. He passed away at the young age of 56, at the very height of his artistic powers.

In anticipation of the landmark exhibition Ink at Tate Modern, London, from 22 April to 30 August 2027, we are delighted to announce the inclusion of Lui Shou-kwan’s work in this historic presentation. In recent years, major museums worldwide have hosted solo exhibitions devoted to his work, among them Ink Play, Art Institute of Chicago (2023); When Form Matters: Following the Path of Lui Shou-kwan to Zen Painting, Hong Kong Museum of Art (2021–2022); Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition, Ashmolean Museum (2018–2019); and In Search of Zen, National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2018). His work is held in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum; the Victoria & Albert Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the National Gallery Singapore; the Taipei Museum of History; and the Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, among others.

Man Fung-yi (b. 1968, lives in Hong Kong)

Man Fung-yi is a prominent figure in Hong Kong’s contemporary art scene, distinguished for her work in sculpture and ink installation. Her celebrated Cheongsam sculpture series was presented at Louis Vuitton in Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore between 2012 and 2014. In this series, she works with metal threads to fashion metallic dresses and shoes, each derived from personal garments, her practice eloquently embodying the interrelatedness of art and life. Man has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States, France, Spain, China, and Hong Kong, among them the major presentation Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation, China Institute Gallery, New York (2025–2026); A Spirit Inside, The Lightbox, UK (2023–2024); and Women in Art: Hong Kong, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge (2019). Her work is held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum; the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan; the Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum; M+, Hong Kong; the Hong Kong Museum of Art; Hong Kong International Airport; Hong Kong MTR; K11 Art Foundation; and Morgan Stanley Bank Asia.

Mok Yat-san (b. 1968, lives in Hong Kong)

Mok Yat-san stands among Hong Kong’s most internationally acclaimed sculptors and public artists, celebrated for his large-scale outdoor landscape sculptures and polar bear sculptures. In his “ink” works, he brings traditional ink art into quiet conversation with contemporary interpretation, probing the spatial relationships of “void and solid,” “light and heavy,” and “yin and yang.” Across two decades, he has contributed actively to numerous public art projects in Hong Kong, among them Public Art Project – Tamar, Art in Station Architecture – Tai Po MTR Station, and the Art Acquisition Project for The Legislative Council Complex. His notable exhibitions include Art Personalised: Masterpieces from the HKMoA (Phase IV), Hong Kong Museum of Art (2025); French May Arts Festival Associated Project: Chinese Surrealism (2021); and Yi Pai: Century Thinking, Today Art Museum, Beijing (2009). His work is presently on view at the Venice Biennale parallel exhibition Personal Structures: Confluences in Italy, through 22 November 2026. His paintings and sculptures are held in the collections of Sentosa Equarius Hotel, Singapore; the Hong Kong Heritage Museum; K11 Art Foundation; and Morgan Stanley Bank Asia.

Wucius Wong (b. 1936, lives in Hong Kong)

Wong Wucius has shaped contemporary ink art in Hong Kong and beyond, and stands among the defining artists of the New Ink Movement, having studied under Lui Shou-kwan. He is renowned for landscape paintings that transform serene natural vistas into striking geometric compositions, giving form to the tension between the fluid and the structured, the organic and the constructed. Inspired by Western modern thought, Wong brings depictions of light and shadow into his ink works, articulating his interpretations of texture, rhythm, spatial depth, and thereby enriching the experience of his art. His early experimental works, including explorations across such diverse media as watercolur, acrylic, and oil, further expanded the expressive possibilities of his contemporary ink practice. Wong’s paintings have been presented in more than 80 solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Major retrospectives have been held at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (2006), the Art Institute of Chicago (2009), and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2016). His paintings were included in China: 5000 Years, Guggenheim Museum (1998), and New Ink Art: Innovation and Beyond, curated by Alice King, Hong Kong Museum of Art (2008). His work is presently on view at M+’s Shanshui: Echoes and Signals (ongoing). His paintings are held in numerous museum collections, including the British Museum; the Ashmolean Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin; the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; the Shanghai Art Museum; the Hong Kong Heritage Museum; and the University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong.

*Alisan Fine Arts is a participating organization in the Asian Art Contemporary™ Network Program. Text and image courtesy of Alisan Fine Arts.