“I would consider my works as depicting a specious present that is paused at a reference point, and replayed whenever it is being observed.”
— Chris Huen Sin Kan

 

Imbued with the spirit of traditional Chinese ink paintings, the spontaneity of plein-air landscapes and the fluidity of ink on paper, Hong Kong-born and London-based artist Chris Huen Sin Kan’s MuiMui marks his return to a minimal pastel palette. Steeped in the individual’s recollection and perception, yet retaining the familiarity of moments of déjà-vu, the present lot brilliantly demonstrates Huen’s unique interplay of space and form.

 

 

A Time and Place?

 

Seemingly languid moments of countryside life are captured with rhythmic lyricism, punctuated by small yet intentional brushstrokes that echo the intermittency of morse code. Painted from Huen’s studio in rural Yuen Long – just North of the dense urban center Kowloon – MuiMui encapsulates viewers in a dimension respite from the hectic flurry of urbanity.

 

“What I usually draw is all about my home or what’s going on around me; they come in everyday repeatedly and begin to take shape in my mind.”
— Chris Huen Sin Kan

 

In this archetypical work, Huen utilises his recurring cast of subjects as anchor with his foster dog ‘MuiMui’ at its foreground. Pictured amid lush foliage, it curiously glances at viewers, with its ears perk up and tail curled up vigilantly.

 

 

Of identical subject matter, the deconstructed geometric forms and soft tones in Huen’s earlier work, MuiMui, evoke the same spiritual resonance – one of six principals of Chinese paintings established by art historian Xie He. In the present lot, however, the artist abandons Western principles of linear perspective in his rendering of seemingly contradictory planes of vision: the dog appears to be viewed from below, yet we are not privy to even a glimpse of the horizon or sky. Heavily diluted with turpentine, two yellow floods of light add depth to the background, a discernible shift from the Huen’s more subdued night-time scenes from his 2018 solo show at Simon Lee gallery.

 

 

Swinging the double-edged sword that is his practice, Huen’s rendering of light balances between peculiar and beguiling; a balance that recalls the watercolours of American modernist, Charles Burchfield. In the present lot, the faint but resonant light resembles dipped headlights of an incoming car, juxtaposing the otherwise daytime scene, thereby prompting viewers to question whether it is day or night. These seemingly incoherent details challenge innate desires for rationality, thereby situating viewers in an alluring array of nonspecific locales.

 

 

Specious Present and Blankness

 

“Most of the time, I work on several paintings at once, allowing time and space to escape from being overly concentrated on a single picture, as what I want to depict is the experience of witnessing an accumulation of scenes from daily life, rather than specific moments.”
— Chris Huen Sin Kan

 

Through his distinctive practice, Huen investigates the 'specious present', a concept first coined by American psychologist, E. Robert Kelly in the 19^th Century, referring to the present as a nonzero duration that is shaped by past experiences. In MuiMui, we witness the specious present unfold and materialise on canvas, with layers of dabbed paint emerging gradually. Incidentally, Huen’s artistic practice parallels our viewer experience: he eschews preliminary drawings or photographs from which to base his scenes. Huen favours intuition over mimesis, explaining as such: ‘I try very hard to let it evolve. In a way it becomes a very natural thing, more like in the real world in our daily experiences, things aren’t scripted or planned.’ ⁱ This practice aligns his oeuvre with the fundamentals of Chinese calligraphy, where brushstrokes are improvised at the moment of writing with fluid spontaneity.

 

 

Informed by hazy recollections of quotidian scenes, Huen unveils glimpses of negative space, exposing the bare canvas beneath. The deliberate omission of details alludes to the gaps in our memory of what is often overlooked. In the present work, a dark diagonal space – indicative of the dog’s path – stands in stark contrast to the white spaces directly below; Huen intentionally diverts our gazes to what is unseen or forgotten, evoking the delicate transience of a fleeting moment, or perhaps beckoning viewers to fill in the spaces like missing pieces of a puzzle. While his brilliant adoption of negative space may be read as an adherence to post-war minimalism, even a nod to Robert Rauschenberg’s white paintings, the concept of nothingness has been ubiquitous in Taoist philosophy since the late Tang Dynasty. The aesthetic value of the ‘intended blank’ is seen to evoke purity of the mind, enabling subjects to gain spiritual resonance – particularly apparent in MuiMui.

 

 

Collector’s Digest

 

• Indicative of the ongoing strength of Huen’s market, his top 20 auction prices were set in the past 3 years, with the current highest result set in June 2023.

• Sold at Phillips Hong Kong in November 2021, Dog Allowed surpassed the lower estimate fourfold and along with the majority of his top 15 lots sold at auction, feature the subject of MuiMui, comparable to the present work.

 

 

• One of the most prominent Hong Kong young artists, Huen has held numerous successful exhibitions at prominent galleries worldwide, including New Moroism, White Cube, Hong Kong (group - 2023); Chris Huen Sin Kan: Artist in Residence, Royal Academy, London (solo - 2022); Blossoms in the Shade, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore (solo - 2022); Puzzled Daydream, Simon Lee Gallery, London (solo - 2020); Tall Trees - and the things I might have forgotten, Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (solo - 2019); Of Humdrum Moments, Pilar Corrias, London (solo - 2017) among others.

• He is currently represented by Gallery Exit and Ota Fine Arts.

• Huen’s works are held in notable collections globally, including Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney among others.

 

 

ⁱ Chris Huen Sin Kan, quoted in, ‘Chris Huen Sin Kan: Process’, Simon Lee Gallery, 29 October 2021, online