3812 Gallery (below referred as “3812”): A decade can bring significant changes to an artist’s way of seeing. When you look at your works from 2016 alongside your most recent paintings, what do you feel has changed most profoundly — your technique, your relationship with nature, or your way of thinking?
Raymond Fung (below referred as “Fung”): After a decade of developing my ink art, the content and themes of my work have increasingly focused on global, ecological and human issues that speak to international audiences, in response to my reaching out to international art platforms. These works include Dynasties (2019), Top of the World (2026), "Breathing", "Life", Embrace of the Great Land (2026), etc.
3812: Your landscapes often begin with recognisable elements of nature but gradually move into a more abstract realm. At what point does a landscape cease to be a depiction of a place and become an expression of something more personal or universal for you?
Fung: I wouldn't describe my works as generally abstract. However, as an artist reaching out to the international art world, I am setting sail in search of a modern yet universal visual language. Hence, abstraction is a natural path that many veteran artists eventually explore, through which artists would ultimately reach a new horizon.
3812: As an architect, you work with spaces that are designed, measured and constructed; as a painter, you also create spaces through gesture, ink and colour. Do these two ways of constructing space influence one another, and where do they fundamentally differ?
Fung: Though trained as an architect, my works could hardly reveal any traces of buildings or dwellings. Architectural concepts are expressed indirectly through the overall compositions of solid and void, the use of black and colour, and linear dimensions, as well as in the way the works are hung on the wall or positioned in space.
3812: You have developed techniques that depart from some of the established vocabulary of Chinese ink painting. How do you approach experimentation while maintaining a connection to the traditional language and developing your own artistic voice?
Fung: The conventional vocabulary of Chinese painting has always presented a dilemma for Chinese artists: whether to continue repeating the traditional language or depart from it in order to develop a personal style. Nevertheless, this requires a strong foundation in basic techniques, while constantly searching for new ideas. Not to mention the continuity of experimentation with materials, ideas and concepts, which is perhaps the most difficult threshold for any artist to cross.
3812: Your recent works seem to give increasing importance to what is left open, rather than only what is painted. How do you decide when a work has enough, and when leaving something unfinished or unresolved makes the painting stronger?
Fung: Interestingly, many newcomers to art, especially ink art, struggle with knowing when to pause during the painting process. Luckily, as an architect, I seem to have found that my previously acquired knowledge and experience have given me the exceptional judgement needed to know when to stop.
3812: The exhibition title “Beyond the Horizon” suggests that the horizon is not a boundary but a threshold towards something unseen. What does “beyond the horizon” mean to you — in your art, and perhaps also in your life?
Fung: Definitely. “Beyond the Horizon” means a lot to me, both in art and in life, but especially in the Chinese tradition, in which one would have inherited the understanding of the “Doctrine of the Mean” (中庸之道) from childhood.
3812: After five decades of painting, what still makes you curious enough to pick up the brush and experiment? And when you look towards the next stage of your practice, is there a particular artistic question that you have not yet answered?
Fung: Giving up architectural practice was definitely a painful decision, because I do find design very joyful and rewarding.
As I have reiterated in other press interviews, compared with architectural practice, pursuing art beyond established boundaries is not an unattainable dream for someone with ambition and perseverance.
In architecture, my ultimate desire is to design an art museum; in my artistic pursuit, my ultimate dream is to design a museum of my own. Hahaha!
