An exhibition entitled “Doppelganger” by local artist Ng Man Wai is being held at the UNESCO Centre of Macau in Nape.
The exhibition, which is sponsored by the Macau Foundation (FM), is part of the Macau Young Artists Programme which started in 2019, according to an article on the Macau Foundation’s website.
The exhibition brochure notes that Ng was born in Macau in 1980. Since graduating from the Department of Fine Arts of Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in 2002 she has been dedicating herself to the education and creation of arts in Taiwan and Macau, while also engaging in art-related activities. She is a member of the local Art for All Society and the Printmaking Research Centre of Macau. Ng moved to Germany in 2011 and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (HBK Saar) with full marks. The university specialising in Visual Arts is located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the western German state of Saarland.
According to the brochure, Ng explores the topic of “the realness in art” from the perspective of a consumerist culture. As a full-time artist, she has travelled between Europe and Asia for art exhibitions and Artist-in Residence programmes, including in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Ng moved to Zhejiang province’s capital Hangzhou in 2018, and hopes to base her future creations on her past experience from both eastern and western culture, the brochure points out.
The exhibition features four series of more than 40 sets/ pieces of Ng’s work: “The Series of Tickets”, “The Tale of Stones”, “Reality and The Real” and “Doppelganger”. The creations include paintings, ceramics, mixed media and installations.
According to Wikipedia, the etymology of the word Doppelgänger is German, and directly translated means “double-walker”, being a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person.
In fiction and mythology, a doppelganger is often portrayed as a ghostly or paranormal phenomenon and usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck. Other traditions and stories equate a doppelganger with an evil twin. In modern times, the term twin stranger is occasionally used. The word “doppelganger” is often used in a more general and neutral sense, and in slang, to describe any person who physically resembles another person.
According to the brochure, Ng has been focusing on the process of symbiosis since 2015, i.e. the interactions between artwork, artist and audience. She tries to replicate in her art and show real objects along with realistic creations imitating them. For the current exhibition, Ng continued her focus on “objective reproduction” and “faithful reproduction”, urging the audience to think and create. She aims to explore various forms and phenomena of reproduction and arouse the audience’s thinking through the display of numerous “doppelgangers”.
Ng’s previous creations prefer ordinary objects with no personality settings, but during the COVID-19 pandemic period, she felt waves of a depressive atmosphere, according to an article on the Macau Foundation website.
Therefore, she especially chose warm objects for this exhibition such as yellow ducklings as her creative objects and hopes the audience will feel more relaxed and interested in the exhibits, according to the article.
The exhibition runs until Monday in the exhibition centre and multifunctional room at the UNESCO Centre of Macau in Alameda Dr. Carlos d’Assumpção, daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.
As part of the government’s COVID-19 epidemic prevention measures, all visitors entering the venue must wear a facemask, have their temperature checked and present a digital health code.
For enquiries, call 28727066 or email unesco_info@fm.org.mo.
Photos: Camy Tam
