Sun Museum today (Oct. 29) opens "Unbound: A Narrative of Mineral Painting," the first exhibition of its Colour Painting Series, supported by the Society of Mineral Pigment Art of Hong Kong. Built on the rigorous craft and established discipline of traditional mineral painting, the show reframes natural mineral pigments as an inclusive, contemporary colour medium, presenting the varied transformations of Eastern colour aesthetics and offering a platform for cross-regional dialogue grounded in Hong Kong's East–West cultural position.
The exhibition brings together nine leading artists from around the world, presenting 33 works that explore the contemporary possibilities of mineral painting. A centrepiece is Camels in the Desert under the Rising Sun by the late master Ikuo Hirayama, rendered in warm tones and thickly applied mineral particles to evoke a vast historical imagery. Alongside works by Hu Mingzhe, Chen Wenguang, Zhu Jin, Chan Yuk Keung (Kurt), Chung Tai Fu and Yau Wing Fung from mainland China and Hong Kong, Japanese artists Asuka Irie and Ayana Otake extend the medium through mixed-media collage and modern interpretations of bijinga (paintings of beautiful women).
Honouring traditional materials—natural minerals, natural glue and paper or silk substrates—the works also experiment with Western intaglio collage, printmaking structure and foraged local earth and stone, responding to contemporary art's concern with materiality and offering a tactile aesthetic experience in a screen-dominated age. The show contrasts three regional approaches: Japanese artists' emphasis on sensory and decorative aesthetics, mainland scholars' research into Dunhuang mural heritage and land philosophy, and Hong Kong artists' hybrid, cross-border practice bridging East and West.
(Reporter: Liu Yu | Video Editor: Ian Lau)
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