17:00
SOAS
October 8
DLT, SOAS
Join Hong Kong artist and architect Raymond Fung in conversation with SOAS art historian Dr Malcolm McNeill.
Join Hong Kong artist and architect Raymond Fung in conversation with SOAS art historian Malcolm McNeill.
Taking place alongside the exhibition 留白 – Beyond Emptiness at SOAS Gallery, this conversation will explore the ideas that move between Fung’s practices as an architect and ink painter, and the ways in which space, nature, cultural tradition and the environment shape his work.
At the heart of the exhibition is the Chinese artistic principle of liubai (留白), or “leaving blank”: the deliberate use of empty or unpainted space to create rhythm, openness and possibility. Fung’s work extends this principle beyond ink painting into architecture, asking how spaces might respond sensitively to their surroundings and how, by building less, architecture can create room for people, nature and place.
Drawing on Fung’s work across architecture, painting and installation, Raymond Fung and Malcolm McNeill will discuss the relationship between ink art and the built environment, the significance of emptiness and space in Chinese visual culture, and the continuing relevance of these ideas to contemporary questions of architecture and our relationship with the natural environment.
The conversation accompanies 留白 – Beyond Emptiness, on display at SOAS Gallery from 2 October.
Raymond Fung Wing Kee is a renowned Hong Kong artist and architect whose practice spans architecture, Chinese ink painting and design. He began studying Chinese ink painting at the age of 15 and has developed a distinctive artistic language informed both by the landscape of Hong Kong and by his architectural understanding of space.
Fung came to wider international attention through Contemporary Chinese Painting 1984–89, curated by Professor Wu Hung at Harvard University. He has since held solo exhibitions internationally, including in New York, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Avignon, Taipei, Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
His works are held in numerous public collections, including the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, National Art Museum of China, China Art Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art, University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
Dr Malcolm McNeill is Director of the SOAS-Alphawood Asian Art Programme and Senior Lecturer in the History of Art at SOAS. His research and teaching focus on Chinese and Buddhist visual culture, text-image relationships, curation and display, and object-based approaches to the study of art.
Before joining SOAS, Malcolm worked at a number of leading museums and cultural institutions in the UK and Asia, including the British Museum, National Palace Museum in Taipei, and Victoria and Albert Museum. From 2017 to 2020 he was a Specialist in Chinese Painting at Christie’s, responsible for the European market.
Malcolm holds a PhD in History of Art and Archaeology from SOAS, where his doctoral research examined narrative and text-image relationships in medieval Chinese Chan figure painting.
The event will be held in the Djam Lecture Theatre (DLT) at SOAS University of London.
Enter through the main entrance of the SOAS Main Building. The Djam Lecture Theatre is immediately on your left as you enter, before the turnstiles.