**Image:** Henry Hu, *the flint #38*, 2022. Pigment inkjet on cotton rag, 38 x 26 cm. Image courtesy of the Artist.

Henry Hu

Gallery 1

Friday 14 April – Sunday 7 May

Opening Thursday 13 April 2023, 6pm - 8pm

From the Series ‘Light Jelly Sweet’, an exhibition of new work by Henry Hu. Featuring animation, paintings, and photographs—together the selection spotlights the artist’s continued interest in abstraction, as a force that might signify life without directly defining it. Engaged with notions of mysticism, central to his practice is an enquiry into the spiritual end.

Light Jelly Sweet (2023)—the centrepiece of the presentation—is realised through a large suite of mixed-media paintings and lens-based works. Forgoing an explicit narrative structure, the artist furthers his exploration into the language and material process of abstract painting, investigating the physicality of the medium. What arises from Light Jelly Sweet, whether on canvas, board, or paper, are testaments of existence as imagined, invented, remembered, and observed.

The initial impression is one of self-generative creation, with vignettes of growth and decay symbolising biological life cycles. The buried fears, the old grudges, the wounded feelings are fused together in these artworks that reach for an understanding of vulnerability, turning inward and examining the subconscious landscape. It is the concept of perception—the perception of a past or a memory, and how we frown upon it—that is at the forefront of what unifies this series.

Henry Hu’s approach is both spontaneous and exact. Limiting his range of tonal palette within each work, the paintings combine a multi-layered technique of paint pours with an ecosystem of raw, earthly materials—mixing sand, gravel, twig, leaf, grass, and wood. The process is fluid, but ever precise and assertive. Each element tunnels into, intertwines with the other, constructing an architecture of forms, colours and texture. A delicate manipulation of material that traces the ambiguity of nostalgia. The end result materialises as an account of time, consciousness made visible. At heart, the works are an embodiment of the natural world, to preserve what is fleeting, a piece of reflection, a quiet wonder.

Also on view are computer-generated animations. Conceived as an extension and companion to the static work, these motion images are a synesthetic field of shapes and rhythms, to suggest the ethereal or perhaps the transcendental—pixelated, fuzzy, blurred visuals that also make parallels with the digital world—advancing the artist’s constant search into new territories of abstraction. Seemingly dissimilar, the common thread that links the video imagery is an intimate study on the mechanism and limitations of memory, both personal and collective, interpreting the lost time, space and thought.

“Burning sun. Open air. Nature. The fields. The woods. A birch. A pine. An oak. Shades. Shadows. Clouds overhead. Streams beneath. They are gifts for a child. How unguarded we were, the early days.

Growth. In years, decades later. The course of life. Death. Grief. Senility. Greeted with apprehensions. Lingering regrets. We return to this gift, now for comfort, for answers. A pleasant solace.

Brisk. Bright. Soft hue. Pale tone. Easy on the eyes. Light Jelly Sweet. A sense of tenderness, clarity and calm. A balm for the soul. A clearing to yearn, to forgive, to let go if only for a moment.

Part bucolic splendour, part whispered serenity. A world tipped into stillness. A reminder that even in the darkness, there is still a reason to look up.”

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Henry Hu

Exercising through various media, Henry Hu’s (b. 1995 Hong Kong) emerging practice commits to an infusion. An exchange. An immediacy. A link between the interior and the exterior — of a self, a being, an identity, a consciousness. Each individual series offers an overarching narrative, steps away from the present for a spell: tasked with casting new perspectives, fresh air to breathe, a spiritual relief. Often juxtaposing the past with the future, differing forms of surrealistic fantasies unfold across his works; along with a recurring structure, the heart of all series rest in harmony.

Henry Hu arrived at his practice through modern technological tools and software. Easily accessible, the digital medium served as an immediate resource. His early works engage aspects of digital arts, computer animations and graphic designs. The years followed, in an attempt to shift toward a more physical manner. Hu took on new materials, working between formats. To incorporate his digital creations into tangible forms. This ongoing exploration has manifested in mixed-media paintings and assemblage.

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