“When I visited Hong Kong in the first summer after the pandemic, seeing all the cargo ships plying the sea, the flowers swaying in the urban parks, and the crowds overwhelming the streets, it was as if Hong Kong had remained unchanged in the flux of history. But as I walked in the evening breeze, the smell of Hong Kong and the subtropical flowers along the roadside gave off an extraordinarily vibrant flavour. ‘Before eyeing this flower, the two of you remain in tranquility; as you come for a view of the flower, it is at once brightened and elucidated, and then you know that the flower is not outside of your heart’. One could read Wang Yangming’s text on the immanent blossom through the flowers of Hong Kong. When I thought about and looked at flowers and plants in Hong Kong, I also realised that this flower-heart relationship is also comparable to my day-to-day artistic labour in relation to my constant review of the reconstructed images. These paintings, which have been detached from me and exist independently, are both frozen and animated in time, and are both outside and inside of my heart, just like those mesmerising flowers that made me stop as they danced in the night winds”.

—Liu Xiaohui

Kiang Malingue is pleased to present “Flowers of Hong Kong”, Liu Xiaohui’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, showcasing twenty sets of oil and tempera paintings. A number of the artworks in the exhibition were created when Liu was the artist-in-residence at Kiang Malingue in 2023. The recent paintings in various sizes combine the artist’s newly found interest in flowers; long-term fascination with the human body in action; a focus on the solitary female figure, and an experience of identifying with the external world triggered by the environment of Hong Kong.

Opening: Sat, 23 March, 3 – 6 PM

Gallery address: 13/F, Blue Box Factory Building, 25 Hing Wo Street, Aberdeen