Review by Rui Pastorin
At 10 Fantasia gallery, an exhibition titled “A Beautiful Glimpse” is being hosted at the “Youth Art Exhibition Room”, showcasing a variety of pieces created by local painter Hana Tou Mei Kun (杜美娟).
The Macau-born artist utilises an interplay of colours, light and detail to bring each piece to life. Varying in size, Tou provides exhibitiongoers with window to Macau and other parts of the world as seen through her eyes, translating that view into serene and tranquil paintings.
Using gentle brush strokes with a patient and skilful hand, Tou’s exhibition presents over 20 works mainly comprising watercolours, while sketches, acrylics and some tile paintings are also on display. The works were created over the years, including those made as recently as this year to those that go all the way back to 2016.
Visitors to the gallery will find something to appreciate regardless of whether or not they are well-versed in art, particularly due to her use of colour and knack for detail. One piece that is sure to stand out is one of the larger paintings on show titled “Gazing into the Sacred Distance”, which was created by the artist this year and may be one of the first pieces that visitors will encounter. Another piece filled with detail and vibrant colour is “Refined Elegance, Ancient Charm”, which was made in 2023.
Shifting to Macau-related works, the 2016 piece “A Glimpse of Macao- Lou Lim Ieoc Garden” sees the artist take on a rich use of green as a backdrop for the unmistakable vibrant yellow building that overlooks the water within the Suzhou-style garden. Rich colours also perfectly bring to life several works with more floral themes, while beauty is found amid construction works depicted in the 2024 pieces “A New City in the Making” and “Urban Transformation”.
The exhibition is curated by fellow local artist Kitman Leong, who is an assistant professor of Fine Arts at the private Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) and vice president of the Macau Youth Art Association. In her foreword, she writes: “The exhibition’s title, A Beautiful Glimpse, calls to mind a line of Song verse: a soft breeze stirs the light dust, dawn lotus wafts a hidden scent. The same unhurried elegance pervades this exhibition, inviting you to step into Hana’s quietly spoken world – to let restlessness lift, to let entanglements dissolve, and to feel, in painting, a spirit set free and a heart at peace”.
Passionate about drawing from a young age, Tou studied the art of watercolour under the mentorship of renowned local artist Dor Lio Hak Man while she was in high school, according to information displayed at the gallery, developing a “deep affinity” for watercolour landscapes, sketching, and acrylic painting. Macau’s cityscapes, landscapes found while travelling and scenes of daily life are the main inspirations behind her works, according to the statement.
Aside from working as a secondary school visual arts teacher, Tou also serves as director of the Macau Youth Art Association, Macau Artist Society, and the Art Teacher Communication Association of Macau. As an artist, she has taken part in various group exhibitions and, in 2016, held an exhibition as part of 10 Fantasia’s “Artist-In-Residence Programme”.
The free-admission exhibition kicked off earlier this month at the gallery near Calçada da Igreja de S. Lázaro (瘋堂斜巷) and is organised by Macau Youth Art Association in conjunction with other entities such as the Macau Artist Society (MAS). It is on until April 29. One can visit the gallery from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Tuesdays to Sundays. It is closed on Mondays.
This photo recently provided by curator Kitman Leong shows local artist Hana Tou posing with her work at 10 Fantasia gallery.
Photos of the exhibition taken yesterday by Rui Pastorin
