“Painting Nostalgia – Ink Works by Lai Ming” Opens Wednesday

Date of publication: 14/11/2006
Type: Exhibition

“Painting Nostalgia – Ink Works by Lai Ming”, organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao S.A.R. Government, will host its opening ceremony this Wednesday (November 15) at 6pm in Tap Seac Gallery, displaying sixty-five works of the contemporary Lingnan painter Lai Ming.

Born Lai Kwok On in Macao in 1929, Lai Ming is one of the few Lingnan painters who are still active in the art circle. Lai studied portraiture with Law Po Shan in 1940. Since his father was a good friend of Lingnan master Gao Jianfu, he started studying Lingnan painting with the master since the age of eleven. Four years later, Lai entered Chun Shui Art Academy and started living with Gao from the following year.

Lai Ming has long been devoted to painting for several dozens of years. He is skilled in both drawings and abstract paintings of different themes and is always producing high-quality works. Other than teaching students, he also has great influence on his family and members of the Hong Kong Springtide Art Society. During his stay in Macao in 1940s and 50s, Lai often wandered around Macao’s streets and suburbs seeking out beautiful scenes for inspiration. He produced many landscape paintings featuring old Macao particularly a painting of St. Paul’s Ruins concerning which Gao Jianfu wrote an inscription “Sacred Relic of Macao”.

Even Lai Ming migrated to Hong Kong over fifty years ago, he still missed his old friends and would often return to Macao to attend different types of art activities. Now he returns to his birthplace where he started his journey of art, to hold his first solo exhibition, which is a contribution to the cultural development of his hometown and marks another chapter in the history of the Lingnan School of Painting which had a major influence on Chinese painting half a century ago.

“Painting Nostalgia – Ink Works by Lai Ming” will be held from November 16 to January 28, 2007. The opening hours for Tap Seac Gallery are everyday from 10am to 7pm. Entrance is free.