Lest this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong fails to satisfy your immense appetite for art, here’s a list of presentations at Art Central 2022 that might curb your craving.

TEXT: CoBo Editorial
IMAGES: Courtesy of various

jason /sveinn contemporary art
Booth B22

A great way to maximise your art-viewing experience is to visit jason /sveinn contemporary art in the Galleries section. This year the Hong Kong-based gallery will be showcasing two specially curated presentations, “Flow” and “Color: The Expression of Love and Determination to Fulfil Our Dreams by Justin Y”.

Through the works of Pang Yongjie, Toshio Iezumi, Kan-Zan-Loc, Hotaru Visual Guerrilla, among others, “Flow” will explore the concept of flow and movement as manifested in mediums such as painting, sculpture, and digital art.

Inspired by his trip to Nepal in 2019 and his experience during the pandemic, the presentation by Justin Y will be exactly what the title suggests: works that express love and determination to fulfil our dreams. Through finger painting paired with a flowing, undulating approach, the artist created a series of new works marked by vibrant colours that represent the colours of nature.

Square Street Gallery / Dog Dreams by Lousy
Booth B23/24

Founded in April 2021, Square Street Gallery will stage its debut appearance with a full line-up, gathering works by Barlo, cucurrucucu, Go Hung, Anabelle Lau, Ticko Liu, Nobody Here, Jason Pulgarin, Daisuke Tajime, Stephanie Teng, Amy Tong, and Wong Sze Chit. Meanwhile, coinciding with his solo exhibition at EJAR | Ragora, Lousy will explore the universality of culture in his special solo project “Dog Dreams” in the Gwo Wai sector.

Contemporary by Angela Li / The Missing Operator by Wong Sze Wai
Booth A1 / B14

Dedicated to promoting established and emerging contemporary artists from Hong Kong, China, and beyond, Contemporary by Angela Li will showcase works by Kurt Chan, Chan Wai Lap, Cheung Tsz Hin, Fatina Kong, Lv Shanchuan, Ng Chung, and Angela Yuen, among others, for its Art Central 2022 presentation.

Particularly worthy of attention, the gallery’s presentation of Wong Sze Wai in Duk Dak will unveil a string of new paintings created last year by the up-and-coming artist. Through depicting the overlooked quadrants of Hong Kong, Wong’s recent works guide its viewers through a transcendental “wonderland of daydream” that tells the history and by-gone tales of the city.

Mwimbi Fine Art
Booth A8

A Hong Kong-based gallery with a focus to showcase contemporary African art to a wider audience, Mwimbi Fine Art will kick off its Art Central debut with new bodies of works by David Makala from Lusaka, Zambia and South African-born Hong Kong-based artist Lee du Ploy.

Curated by Lee Garakara, founder and creative director of the gallery, the presentation will highlight Makala’s large-scale monoprints and mixed media portraits, through which the self-taught artist shapes a form of layering that reflects the multi-faceted identities constructed over time. Meanwhile, the works by du Ploy, who is also a medical practitioner, will recreate the artist’s memories from his encounters with various individuals.

Karin Weber Gallery
Booth A7

Returning to Art Central for the fifth time, Karin Weber Gallery will be spotlighting homegrown talents such as Chui Pui Chee, Frank Tang, Go Hung, Joey Leung, and Tsang Chui Mei, alongside Emily Allchurch from the UK and Japanese artist Daisuke Teshima.

While Tang will grace his Art Central debut with a celebration of perseverance through his Hayao Miyazaki-inspired The Wind is Rising! We Must Try To Live! (2022), the painting by Leung, Starless Night (2022), will show off the artist’s scrupulous gonbi skills, alongside an ode to the master painters, inscripted on the top left corner of the work.

Wonder how the Hong Kong skyline will look like in a classical Chinese painting? Check out the new works by Allchurch. Known for her use of photography and digital collage to put a contemporary spin on works by Old Masters such as Piranesi and Breugel, for this presentation she will be showing the iconic view of the city in the style of a Song dynasty painting.

Touch Gallery
Booth B3

In case your craving for pristine, immaculate ceramic art suddenly creeps in, Touch Gallery’s booth will be the perfect place for you. The local gallery, which specialises in exhibiting works of renowned contemporary ceramic artists, will feature five artists in its lineup, from ceramic artists Kamio Ogatam, Satoshi Kino, and Sara Tse, to contemporary artist Cheung Sze Lit and William Lim, who is also the founder of architecture firm CL3.

Soluna Fine Art
Booth B5 / B13 / P5

A gallery dedicated to art with deep roots in South Korea, Soluna Fine Art covers all bases this year—literally and figuratively—with presentations spread across Guo Wai, Yi Tai, and Duk Dak.

The group presentation in Guo Wai will serve as a capsule review of the gallery’s past exhibitions, spotlighting a collection of Asian fine art paintings and objects by both emerging and established contemporary artists from various countries, such as Kim Young-Hun, Jon Poblador, Song Kwang-Ik, Kim Keun-Tai, Rosalyn Ng, and more.

Staging in the Yi Tai sector will be “Bing Lee: Travel Log”, a showcase drawn from the New York-based artist’s experience travelling and in quarantine during the pandemic last year. As an extension of his previous exhibition, “Storyteller”, this presentation will highlight a string of new works, including a site-specific mural painting and “Honeycomb Aluminum”, a series inspired by the idea of home and traveling, alongside “Pictodiary”, where the viewers will be able to experience the artist’s new visual language through an AR digitalised platform.

Tanya Baxter Contemporary
Booth A20

The presentation at Tanya Baxter Contemporary will definitely be the one to visit for the British art lovers. From Francis Bacon and David Hockney, to Damien Hirst and Pip Todd Warmoth, and more, the gallery will offer a historical framework from post-war to the present day, through a carefully curated body of works from the 20th and 21st century.

JPS Gallery / The Magical Hoop by Afa Annfa
Booth B1 / P4

First established in Hong Kong in 2014, and four years later in Tokyo, JPS Gallery strives to present the works of emerging and established contemporary artists.

One of the rising talents in the local art scene, Afa Annfa will invite viewers to embark on an imaginary journey through the magical porthole of a laundromat. “The Magical Hoop”, one of the six large-scale projects in Yi Tai, will feature a series of surreal drawings, with an installation of a street-front laundromat in Hong Kong that connects to an immigrant’s living room in the UK—an allegory of the Hong Kong emigrants whose yearning for returning to the city is unrealised due to soaring housing prices and unsettling social transformations.

Art Central
26 – 29 May 2022
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

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