“I chose ‘Before I Forget’ as the theme of the exhibition because our memory has a time limit, and thus I hope to engrave those moments on my mind through art creation, which may possibly bring back other people’s memories,” said the British Chinese printmaker.
Wuon-Gean Ho, a Chinese printmaker who graduated from the Royal College of Art, one of the UK’s top art schools, came to Hong Kong in July with more than 100 of her handmade prints for a solo exhibition at the HKOP Gallery in the Jockey Club Creative Arts Center in Shek Kip Mei.
Through her exhibited artwork, Ms. Ho shares with the Hong Kong audience her life experiences in the recent seven years—the life-and-death separation she experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the feelings of living at home alone, and the joy and sorrow encountered with her veterinarian career.
Ms. Ho was born in Oxford, England. Her parents were Singaporeans and Malaysians who immigrated to the U.K. in the 1960s. Born and raised in the UK, Ms. Ho was influenced by her parents to study veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, which became her main career. At the same time, she studied art history as a hobby and graduated with a double degree in veterinary medicine and art history.
Later, she got a Master’s degree in Art (Printmaking) from Britain’s top art institute, the Royal College of Art, and a Fellowship in Etching at the Royal Academy of Art. Now she is an associate research fellow at the Center for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England in Bristol, in the UK, and is taking a doctoral program at the University. Both art and veterinary medicine are Ms. Ho’s favorite careers.
Spirit of Craftsmanship Forged from the Ancient Engraving Craft
Now that printing technology has entered the digital era, printmaking, which requires the complicated procedures of plate making and printing, has gradually entered the art field from the common printing crafts of the past. The opportunity for Ms. Ho to enter printmaking began 25 years ago.
In 1998, when Ms. Ho was still studying at Cambridge University, she got a scholarship from the Japanese government to study woodblock printing with water-based ink, known as “Mokuhanga” in Japan. Being slightly dark-skinned, Ms. Ho was always mistaken for a Japanese before people heard her. After six months of intensive training in Japan, she was able to master some Japanese language and then followed a Japanese engraving master to learn the local traditional craft.
“Mokuhanga is very interesting. They use a special tool, baren, which is a kind of circular flat plate. “Japanese Ukiyo-e prints are printed with this tool,” said Ms. Ho, who was deeply impressed with the craftsmanship of the old Japanese master.
He would lift the baren and rub it against his bald head and then put the baren onto paper to print. “They do this to let the baren get a little grease so that the baren will slide on the paper when the printing takes place on the paper,” explained Ms. Ho.
During her studies in Japan, Ms. Ho deeply felt the “craftsmanship spirit” of the old, veteran masters and their pursuit of excellence.
“Japanese teachers are different from British teachers. They tend to teach by example. They don’t usually give a lot of theoretical explanations, but they let me learn their methods through continuous imitation and practice. This had a great influence on my learning in later days,” Ms. Ho recalled.
In 2016, Ms. Ho came to England to take a Fellowship in Etching at the venerable Royal Academy of Art in London, a traditional 250-year-old institution that still retains its old printing presses, where she worked as a research assistant and made her own creations.
During her days at the Academy, and when she held the carving knife and moved it on the wood board, Ms. Ho felt a great sense of inner serenity. Producing every woodblock for printing took her enormous time and energy, yet she enjoyed very much the process of each production of her works, especially when her daily life experiences were re-presented through the prints, which gives her a great sense of achievement.
Tackling Fear with Humor When Facing Life and Death Lessons Brought by the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping around the globe has caused the world to stand still. The sudden home isolation and lockdown have brought indescribable psychological pressure. The death of relatives and good friends seems to freeze the air and the whole city is shrouded in an atmosphere of panic.“The parents of several of my friends passed away because of the pandemic. The mother of one of my friends was only 51 years old when she died after five days of becoming infected. It’s really horrible,” said Ms. Ho.
She recalled all these with dread, “Those days in 2020, most of my time was spent in self-isolation at home, and all the work was done online. Cooking and art creation had become the mainstay of my life.”
Ms. Ho showed one of her prints filled with fun - a girl opened her mouth, swallowing all kinds of food: potato chips, noodles, dumplings, watermelon, fish, lotus root, lettuce, donuts, chocolates, eggs, wine……
“This picture uses an exaggerated form to represent my life at that time. I kept eating at home and the food made me feel happy. I want to depict life under the pandemic in a humorous way, hoping to evoke an echoing smile from the audience who see my works,” Ms. Ho said. She believes that the fear shrouded by the plague should not spread, and one should become even stronger and appreciate every moment of life in a time of helplessness. To her, humor is the best magic weapon to fight inner fear.
A Shrewd Eye Seeing the Commonalities between Veterinary Work and Art
Among Ms. Ho’s series of works, some of them are related to her 20 years of veterinary profession. She believes that veterinary work and art bear something in common.
“A veterinarian has to be a good listener, a good observer, and a good communicator. Sometimes a client will come in with an animal and say the animal has been sick for two days. Sometimes the animal has been sick for a long time, as you can tell from your observations, but the illness has become so severe in the last two days. This relies on the experience of the veterinarian who takes care of these details. I think that such sensitivity is also helpful in creating art because you have to observe the world and reflect on the details in your work,” she explained.
Ms. Ho shared an engraving of a small hamster during her clinical consultation. In the picture, the owner was attentively looking at the dying hamster with sorrow while the vet was staring at the machine screen showing the poor condition of the hamster. The whole scene conveys a feeling of gravity and seriousness. But there was one detail Ms. Ho hoped to share with the audience.
“Have you seen the light on the little hamster? I added it intentionally. Although the little life is fading away, its owner’s love for it and trust in me are the details I’d like to express. So don’t underestimate this light, which that illuminates you and me,” Ms. Ho said.
___________________ References:
