Every Daily - HO Siu Nam, South

The sad story behind new paint and pixels artworks

How HO Siu Nam, South's Every Daily series became part of the grieving process for the loss of his father

There's a certain sadness to Every Daily, the latest series of photo paintings by Chinese artist and photographer HO Siu Nam, South. On show from tomorrow (September 4) at Hong Kong's Blindspot Gallery he says they mark somewhat of a breakthrough in his creative endeavours - albeit one that came at some personal cost.

HO has spent the last few years photographically documenting the town of Tin Shui Wah, one of the largest new towns in Hong Kong and also the place where his father lived - and very recently, died.

HO has been inspired by the impermanence of life before. In fact previous works such as Into Light and Impermanence set out to illuminate the transience of living. For these new works however he employed a number of new methods: he picked the colour of each apartment block by throwing a dice (We're unsure as to whether he was influenced by The Dice Man, the infamous 1971 book by New York psychoanalyst Luke Rhinehart). He then went on to paint the uniformly sized blocks on the photographs using paintbrushes left by his late father.  

 

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Through this repetitive, almost mindless, process of painting the blocks, Ho attempted to reach a meditative state which he used as part of the grieving and healing process for his father. He says incorporating painting into the work helped the process. 

HO Siu Nam, South established his studio in 2008 and was awarded the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards 2009. This year he co-founded 100 ft. PARK, a non-commercial art space dedicated to providing an open platform for exhibiting and sharing art.

If you'd like to learn more about Chinese Art, both contemporary and not so contemporary, allow us to point you at our new book The Chinese Art Book. If you click on the link above or top left you can learn a lot more about it and read an interview with its editor, Diane Fortenberry. 

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