Paintings by Stephanie Ho
Novemeber 25 - December 16, 2009
Born in Hong Kong in 1979, Stephanie Ho began her training in oil painting at the age of 11. With a great passion in fine art and culture, she chose to pursue her career in the arts sector after graduating from the London School of Economics in 2001. Working as a painter full-time since 2007.
Inspired by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Julian Opie, L.S. Lowry and Edward Hopper, Stephanie enjoys the simplicity, precision and linearity in paintings. With an interest in art history, she also owes her creative thoughts to the masters of various art movements over the last hundreds of years. From primitive cave drawings, symmetric compositions of religious icons in the early Renaissance, subtle tonal arrangements excelled by the Impressionists, linearity and repetitiveness of American pop art, to the vibrant colours favoured by many Chinese contemporary artists.
Stephanie’s
recent works relate to her interest
in observing human activities of metropolitan city lives, be it in a
train
station, airport, shopping mall, park or any other
public spaces. The people in the paintings showed no expressions.
Viewed from a
distance, they look the same yet they are different. Just like the
woman you
sit next to on the bus every morning or the man standing at the
opposite side
of the platform - strangely familiar.
The limited contextual details of the backgrounds echo the behaviours of busy city people, who are often so engaged in what they are doing that they ignore their surrounding environment. This ironically provides a perfect setting for viewers to observe the choreographic patterns formed by the citizens.
Based mainly on photographs, each painting seeks to capture that something special in what would otherwise have been a mundane scene; someone, somewhere frozen in time. People in the paintings slip off boundaries of the canvases reflect the ongoing human activities. The limited palette further enhances the surreally and dream-like atmosphere of the picture.
Still Frames opens on December 4th in Art Beatus Gallery exhibition space on Graham Street and runs for three weeks from November 25 until December 16th, 2009.Art Beatus Gallery is located on the ground floor of 35-39 Graham Street, Central, near the junction with Hollywood Road and Lyndhurst Terrace (SOHO Area).
For further information, please either e-mail us at dyiu@artbeatus.com.hk or call at 2522-1138 / 2526-0818.
Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat 11:30am to 7:30pm, Closed on Sundays & Public Holidays.
