‘Exquisite Taste and Rich: The Artwork of Collaboration and Symbol’ by Michael Andrew Law, HK
Hong Kong art gallery Art Supermarket is pleased to present Exquisite Taste and Rich: The Artwork of Collaboration and Symbol, the solo exhibition by our new artist Michael Andrew Law (Hong Kong).
Contemporary is the generation of comments and reviews on the past, thus contemporary art is the best tool and platform. Michael Andrew Law (Born. Law Cheuk-Yui) is one of the most original and passionate artists in Hong Kong, with his vibrant and recognisable paintings with the juxtaposition of their visual elements of popular culture.
For Law, painting is a medium that works as a commentary on contemporary culture. Combining Pop Art, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, Law uses a humorous way to connect popular culture from low art to high art, commercial art to fine art, and past to present.
The paintings contain various cultural icons and symbolic value in historical art history — Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, David of Michelangelo, and Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, as well as popular icons in contemporary art history such as Jeff Koons’s balloon dog, KAWS, Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup, Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkins and Banksy’s Girl with Balloon, along with Hollywood stars and celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Hedy Lamarr.
Law also incorporates everyday objects like advertising images of global brands such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola, famous food, comics, cartoon characters such as Mr Monopoly, Scrooge McDuck, Snoopy and Mickey Mouse, as well as expenditure trends including luxury brands, and reinterpreted NFT by hand paint the famous NFT art, and Millennials' culture such as taking selfies.
Law dedicates to explore the symbols of Exquisite Taste and the Rich in our society through these visual elements, by creating a dialogue over the definition of Exquisite Taste in nowadays culture, also the visual elements representing Exquisite Taste and high class, and income and value through modern expression, etc.
Whilst some might take the same symbols as meaningless, banal and superficial at the same instant. Besides paying homage to Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dots, Law uses seemingly unrelated images using cinematic techniques like montage and superimposition to create a harmonious, semi-abstract and yet playful scenery. They are painted utilizing classical painting trained techniques and glazing techniques, and next to those are bright graffiti words. Law’s colourful dynamic line strokes created energy and motion effects for viewers, as well as used paint splatter to enrich images texture, presenting a certain level of art paint techniques.
Law studied classical painting theories and techniques with Italian American classical painter Dan Anderson. His paintings are expressions of contrasts, of opposites that attract whether in symbology or artistic language. The reinterpretation of familiar Western Pop Art iconography, which is rendered through the mastery of classical painting makes Law a powerful contemporary storyteller.
This October, Law’s work will be installed at Jao Tsung-I Academy Museum in Hong Kong. The exhibition is a series of paintings part of Law’s Art History Dialogues body of works.