M.F.A. Graduation Exhibition

The Master of Fine Arts (Art Practice) is a research postgraduate programme in the Department of Fine Arts, CUHK, designed to nurturing individuals aspiring to engage in artistic creation. The programme integrates artistic practice with the study of art theory, offering specializations including painting, sculpture, mixed media, digital media, Chinese painting and calligraphy, and seal carving. This year, four graduates and two first-year students are showcasing their creative works.

“Get Yourself a Safety Cushion!”

FUNG Yee Tin, Thomas

‘’A dozen eggs, two teaspoons of sugar, and some orange peels…”

We are living in a modern world where images bombard us every day. Images are often seen as evidence of various incidents, shaping our perception of the world around us, leading us to see images as facts of specific events. On the one hand, images can record things that have happened. On the other hand, do they truly represent reality? Regardless of the medium, images serve as a double-edged sword in shaping our perception.

It is inevitable that some information is lost during the process of human perception. When incidents are represented as images, distortion of information must occur due to physical conditions. Initially, distortion of information happens during the selection of images. At this point, the selection of “what to be seen” has already been manipulated by the image-maker. The moment of truth never exists without a witness to the real.

Images displayed in this exhibition are selected from the archive of educational propaganda in Hong Kong. Captured from these advertisements, they are painted on canvas. Through representing these images, their messages are twisted, distorted and ultimately eliminated when the moving images are frozen in every single moment. The act of painting not only disrupts the typical ways of seeing but also can be seen as a destruction of social order, providing an open-ended space for interpretation.

At the present time, we are accustomed to perceiving information through the internet. Compared to receiving information through television in the old days, we are supposed to have a more comprehensive understanding of the world, as we can make ethical judgements in response to image. However, do we really perceive reality in our daily lives? Are we having more freedom on perceiving in this web 3.0 era?

Get yourself a safety cushion when you stand in front of an image.

“Moving in the In-Between”

LAM Kwok Yam, Aaron

“Moving in the In-Between” highlights a state of suspension—a continual ebb and flow within uncertainty. It gestures toward moments and thoughts still awaiting resolution, where bodily sensations, memory gaps, and everyday fragments all carry unresolved meanings. By withholding an indefinite answer to the question “Who am I?”, the ruptures to certainty that once disoriented have subsided, and one begins to understand that identity need not be moored to a fixed shore, but may instead emerge gradually through the act of drifting.

The M.F.A. Graduation Exhibition by Aaron LAM Kwok Yam, “Moving in the In-Between”, is a collection of works rooted in the artist’s family history of migration. Spanning mixed media, installation, and moving images, the works gather fragments of lived experience and personal narrative to construct a landscape where memory, story and imagination converge. Lam’s inspiration for these works came from his mother, whose two most cherished belongings when she first arrived in Hong Kong were a statue of Guanyin and a lei-cha bowl. These objects, bridging spiritual devotion and everyday ritual, underscore the role of personal belongings in the shaping of identity. Through Lam’s re-composition and re-contextualization of these and related objects, the collective work exposes the fractures and reformations of memory, extending private experience into a broader sociocultural terrain. In this exhibition, traces of the past encounter the fluidity of the present, opening a contemplative dialogue on belonging, distance and desire.

“The Clear Shot”

LUI Yan Yi, Mindy

Transparency dispels ambiguity and contradictions; heightened visualization clarifies actions. Fingers are manipulated and directed, allowing for precise calculations of each optimal point, making everything unmistakably clear. This year’s M.F.A. Graduation Exhibition, The Clear Shot, showcases a series of new works by Mindy LUI, featuring a diverse array of mediums, including oil painting, installations, and moving images. Continuing her exploration of the concepts of “disappearance” and “absence,” LUI introduces elements of transparency, intervening in and post-producing the visible and invisible aspects of objects to manipulate or emphasize the shifting states of reality in everyday life.

The interpretation of visible information is modified, evolving into a shared strategy. Everyday objects and images—such as first aid supplies, wrapping paper, cubic zirconia (simulated diamonds), and glass industrial products—are arranged in a semi-open space, gradually creating desiccated, ghostly images that can appear both blurred and transparent. Through the interplay of rich and empty imagery, this exhibition seeks to investigate visual phenomena while both guiding and confounding the viewer’s cognitive habits.

“Deflection”

TAN Benxi

In this MFA Graduation Exhibition, Benxi captures fleeting moments from car journeys between cities. These events unfold at suburban edges: southern hills scattered with islands, factories flashing past windows, buildings hovering on the horizon. Repetition comes from the journey; surprise comes from the unrelated. He collects these accidents, pairing them with still landscapes, creating fragments of recurring reality.

How many times must something happen to be seen? On the road, gazes already cross. The landscape stays silent. The eye sees events, but needs stillness to trace change. Holding small acts of observation in tangled city networks—is like a shift in where cities meet—reshaping memory.