‘I get bored very, very easily,’ warns the globetrotting Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, whose latest series of works – inspired by his 18 month-long residency in Tokyo, Japan – is on show at White Cube Hong Kong.
The 80 watercolour paintings range from postcard- to poster-size and are produced on the simple gilt-edged card ubiquitous to Japanese stationery stores, which he covers with gold leaf before painting.
The works feature Orozco’s trademark semi-abstract geometrical circles dissected with precise lines, along with an ethereal natural landscape quality that evokes the fluidity of sumi-e brushstrokes.
‘I see the gold surface like an empty space,’ he says. ‘I start with brush strokes to activate that perfect gold surface.’
The paintings are deliberately propped up on a narrow unvarnished timber shelf, that runs throughout the pristine white two-storey gallery space; to be experienced ‘more as objects reclining on the shelf’, the artist explains.
While best viewed as a complete collection, the standout piece of the exhibition is one of the smaller and more simple iterations, a sole leaf that the artist painted in a single brushstroke.
This eagle-eyed focus on space is his trademark. ‘Emptiness is my favourite subject,’ he says. ‘Here it was about what to leave empty like the spaces in a Zen garden.’
Fear of boredom keeps him moving to different countries, a process that helps him learn by continually trying new things, he says.
‘It’s very strange, though, because I tend to go to the same restaurant and order exactly the same things off the menu,’ he laughs. ‘But not with my work.’
The 80 watercolour paintings range from postcard- to poster-size and are produced on the simple gilt-edged card ubiquitous to Japanese stationery stores, which he covers with gold leaf before painting. Pictured left: Suisai I, 2016. Right: Suisai III, 2016
The works feature Orozco’s trademark semi-abstract geometrical circles dissected with precise lines, along with an ethereal natural landscape quality that evokes the fluidity of sumi-e brushstrokes. Pictured left: Suisai V, 2016. Right: Suisai XII, 2016
The paintings are deliberately propped up on a narrow unvarnished timber shelf that runs throughout the pristine white two-storey gallery space
‘Emptiness is my favourite subject,’ Orozco says. ‘Here it was about what to leave empty like the spaces in a Zen garden.’ Pictured left: Suisai XX, 2016. Right: Suisai XIII, 2016
INFORMATION
’Suisai: Tokyo Strokes’ is on view until 20 August. For more information, visit the White Cube Hong Kong website (opens in new tab)
Photography: Vincent Tsang, White Cube. Courtesy the artist
ADDRESS
White Cube Hong Kong
50 Connaught Road Central
Hong Kong
VIEW GOOGLE MAPS (opens in new tab)
-
Constance Guisset makes her Fuorisalone debut with a scenographic design partySalone del Mobile 2023: ‘Surprise Party! Carte Blanche à Constance Guisset Studio’ (17 April – 13May 2023) is the first Milanese solo show of the French designer
-
An off-grid cabin in Washington State opens up to a spectacular landscape
Ment Architecture’s off-grid cabin, Swift, offers volcanic views and solar-powered sylvan living from its clifftop site
-
Kimsooja transforms Copenhagen’s underground Cisternerne into a laboratory of light
We exclusively preview South Korean artist Kimsooja's ‘Weaving the Light’, an illuminating, kaleidoscopic installation in Copenhagen’s subterranean Cisternerne (26 March – 30 November 2023)
-
Yayoi Kusama on love, hope and the power of art
To celebrate Yayoi Kusama's 94th birthday, we revisit our 2022 interview with the legendary Japanese artist. Her show at M+, Hong Kong, runs until14 May at M+, Hong Kong
-
Homoerotic paper cuttings and 3D-scanned Chinese restaurants tell stories of Asian migration
In Hong Kong, stories of Asian migration take over Blindspot Gallery in group show, ‘Soy Dreams of Milk’
-
White Cube at Arley Hall: contemporary sculpture meets the English country house garden
White Cube’s first outdoor sculpture exhibition puts the work of 12 modern and contemporary artists, including Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley and Danh Vo, on view in the grounds of Cheshire’s Arley Hall
-
‘A Show About Nothing’: group exhibition in Hangzhou celebrates emptiness
The inaugural exhibition at new Hangzhou cultural centre By Art Matters explores ‘nothingness’ through 30 local and international artists, including Maurizio Cattelan, Ghislaine Leung, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Liu Guoqiang and Yoko Ono
-
Wang Gongxin at White Cube: hidden cameras, eerie minimalism and grey matter
Wang Gongxin’s show at White Cube Mason’s Yard explores cultural polarities and in-between states through 13 captivating new multimedia works
-
Cao Fei’s dystopian fantasies fuse art and technology
Chinese artist Cao Fei’s dystopian art tackles themes such as the automation of labour, hyper-capitalism and the effect of a global pandemic. Having just completed her first major solo show in Beijing, the prolific winner of the 2021 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is going global, with her retro-futuristic take on contemporary life now the subject of exhibitions from Los Angeles to Rome, and a 20-page portfolio for Wallpaper*
-
Hong Kong through artists’ eyes
Hong Kong’s buzzing art and design scene, explored through the eyes of two creatives drawn to practise in the city
-
Theaster Gates: London, urban reform and exemplars of Black excellence
The American artist and urban planner returns to London for a cultural takeover on a grand scale, and – as one of five visionaries invited to nominate creative leaders of the future for ‘5x5’, Wallpaper’s 25th anniversary project – picks five exemplars of Black excellence leading the way for social and creative change
