HA BIK CHUEN

Born in Jiangmen, China, Ha Bik Chuen moved first to Macau in 1949 then settled in Hong Kong in 1957. There, he stablished Style Handicrafts Factory, which sold handmade paper flowers to churchgoers; in the 1960s, with the demand for paper flowers in decline, Ha began to experiment with printmaking and other mediums.

Ha Bik Chuen became known for his relief prints, many of which feature abstracted landscapes (Emptiness, 1991) or contemplative figures (Pondering, 1997), and sculptural works made using found objects.

Ha is also recognised for his ‘thinking studio’, an enormous archive of hand-bound volumes, collage books, and photographic documentation of exhibition in Hong Kong that the artist visited. In 2014, Asian Art Archive began Ha Bik Chuen Archive Project, researching and making Ha’s vast collection accessible to the wider public.

In April 2021, Tai Kwun‘s JC Contemporary opened Portals, Stories, and Other Journeys, a group exhibition that activates Ha’s Archive through the works of artists including Banu Cennetoğlu, Walid Raad, Lam Wing Sze, and Suha Traboulsi. The archive, as Emily Verla Bovino writes for Ocula Magazine, is explored as ‘a reflective space enabling speculative migrations of thought and creative displacements in time.’

Ha Bik Chuen’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions including From Common to Uncommon, his major solo retrospective exhibition at Hong Kong Museum of Art (2011); Oasis-Mirage: Hong Kong International Sculpture Symposium 2009 Exhibition, Hong Kong (2009); The 2nd Chinese Contemporary Printmaking Documentary Exhibition, Nanjing Museum, China (2008); and the Beijing International Art Biennale (2005 and 2003).

Ocula | 2021