The upcoming exhibition “Have A Nice Day” at SC Gallery will showcase 14 brand-new Gongbi paintings by Jacky Tao. After a year of reflexivity and preparation, Tao, filled with ambition and passion, attempts to develop a pictorial narrative that intertwines reality and fantasy through the compositions in his paintings, while establishing a connection with the current social phenomena and context.
The artist uses advertising display screens as a medium to weave together the daily lives of Hong Kong people and iconic scenes from pop culture. Through his solid line drawing skills, Tao connects a wide range of themes, including classic literature and films, horse racing stories, pop culture and public spaces. They span across from personal to societal level, and from micro view to macro view. In those paintings, he creates a perspective that resembles reality, but feels different from what we see in our everyday lives, and uses calligraphy brush to present his unique “worldview” of his keen observations of the local community in Hong Kong.
In “Magnificent Tomorrow,” the artist uses a bus heading to the airport as a medium, to link the biblical story of God instructing Noah to build an ark with the recent phenomenon of Hong Kong people emigrating other countries due to recent social changes. Outside of the bus windows, there are animals traveling through the mountains, symbolizing the decision to start anew in an unfamiliar place, due to the unease caused by the unpredictable shifts in the society. This work not only portrays the last ride of departing citizens on a vehicle that accompanied them when they were growing up, but also carries an array of complex emotions, including anticipation for a new life ahead, as well as reluctance to leave their homeland behind.
Horse racing is another common symbol in this exhibition. In the artist’s perspective, horse racing is not just a competitive sport, but rather a symbol representing an everlasting Hong Kong society. In the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping promised that the “running of horses and dancing of people will go on,” to reassure Hong Kong people that nothing would change for fifty years after its return to China. Thus, Hong Kong has preserved the popularity this sport originated from British tradition, which also acts as a symbol for vitality and Westernization. However, the artist believes that today’s Hong Kong is rapidly changing, and nothing remains the same, including the iconic “Ding Ding” trams that might be phased out one day. Therefore, Tao uses the “Ding Ding” as a medium, juxtaposing elements that would likely disappear in the near future with eternal symbols. He believes that even if these “classics” perish one day, the memories and nostalgia that Hong Kong people hold will persist.
In the end, the artist returns his examining eye away from the society and towards himself, questioning, in this rapidly changing era, will he choose to go with the flow? Or fearlessly uphold his beliefs? Tao’s answer is clear, as his desire to always strive for the best is demonstrated through his works. In this world, he desperately seeks his own place and sense of direction, and to summarize this exhibition, he ends with a line from Stephen Chow’s movie “Out of the Dark”- “As long as you have faith, even ghosts won’t be able to do anything to you!”
This is Tao’s belief, and he shares it with Hong Kong people as mutual encouragement.