Reframing Strangeness /
Para Site /
Hong Kong /
May 10 – August 10, 2025 /
Typhoon season in Hong Kong is brutal. Tree limbs snap and fall. Ships are damaged or even run aground. Roads flood or, worse yet, cave in.
But the rain gave Ha Bik Chuen inspiration. Specifically, he saw how the shoes of pedestrians left imprints on newsprint that lay stuck to the ground after it dried, the paper moulded with new bumps and contours, traces left by the people who had walked through as they sought cover from the deluge.
The artist decided to dedicate part of his practice to making paper artworks with pronounced bumps and grooves. Ha needed a way to shape the sheets, so he made more than 100 collagraph plates, which he called “motherboards”, between 1974 and 1995. The process surely drew upon the woodworking skills that he acquired as a teenage apprentice in a construction and decoration workshop in Jiangmen. With these print matrixes, Ha created an estimated 3,000 collagraphs, each with about six layers of paper and pigment applied. This element of Ha’s practice is the focus of Reframing Strangeness, an exhibition at Para Site.
The artist expressed a range of influences in his motherboards, drawing from ancient Chinese history as well as the environs around his home and studio in To Kwa Wan. He incorporated natural materials, mainly dried leaves, that he collected from various locations, including Macau.
From Ancient to Modern (1983) features Ha’s interpretation of an oracle bone, with leaves and rattan embedded on the board and “Hong Kong” carved into the surface in both English and Chinese. There’s more engraved script that is stylistically similar to jiaguwen, the earliest known form of Chinese writing, which was preserved on tortoise shells and bones. This is familiar imagery for almost anyone educated in Hong Kong and mainland China – the oracle bones are proof that establish the existence of the Shang dynasty (circa 1600-1046 BCE), and children are taught about these artefacts and the writings they bear to acknowledge their Chinese cultural heritage.
Ha’s motherboards were cast as not only tools to make art but also artworks in their own right – mosaics, relief, collage. This was most evident in the imagery of Sacred (1975), featuring a monolithic, complex composition. The arrangement involves what appears to be a geometric tower, starting with a trapezoidal base and a rectangular trunk that extends upwards. At the top, a rhombus houses triangles, squares and finally a circle at its centre. The pieces forming this board embody a range of textures – 13 in all – giving them a wider variety of natural grain than other artworks in the show.
The motherboards are presented at Para Site so that their backs can be viewed as well, telling another part of Ha’s story. These normally hidden sides reveal how Ha used wooden pallets and crates that were likely found in To Kwa Wan and that also served as his ledger pages to track the collagraph editions that he had produced and sold.
Look closely to find a few names that appear multiple times, across different motherboards’ records. “Nigel”, for instance, was almost certainly the late South China Morning Post art critic Nigel Cameron, who wrote for the daily between 1972 and 1994. There are records of Ha making collagraphs for exhibitions in Poland, West Germany and local presentations in Hong Kong.
One object in Reframing Strangeness is easy to miss – a low table borrowed from Ha’s Thinking Studio in To Kwa Wan. It was on its modest surface that Ha did some of his artistic work. It isn’t difficult to imagine him seated by it, stamping, pounding, painting, laboriously adding layers of paper and pigment, gradually shaping a collagraph to his own satisfaction. Possibly this table was also where Ha and his guests would convene, perhaps to discuss a new concept or reference that Ha mined from one of the many publications that packed his studio’s shelves.
The exhibition at Para Site primarily presents Ha’s motherboards, collagraphs and a few gouache drawings, but it embodies much more. Reframing Strangeness is the first time in 31 years that his artworks have been presented in a solo exhibition, according to the artist’s daughter. It is a show that reaches back into Ha’s artistic practice, the output of which lay dormant in his packed studio, which remained largely untouched for years after his death in October 2009.
Ha is now primarily known as an important figure who compiled an encyclopedic personal archive, including comprehensive photo documentation of exhibitions and candid moments involving cultural figures. He started taking these photographs in the early 1980s, when he bought his first camera, and continued doing this until his death in 2009, adding layers of attestation and references to the city’s art scene, much like his meticulous work to create every collagraph. Reframing Strangeness provides a refreshed look at his diverse practice, recalling how a self-taught artist was able to assemble a wide-ranging body of work and unique records of Hong Kong’s art scene for decades.
重置陌像
Para Site藝術空間
香港
2025年5月10日至8月10日
香港的颱風季來勢洶洶：樹枝斷裂墜落，船隻損毀或擱淺，路面被淹甚至塌陷。
但暴雨卻給了夏碧泉創作靈感——他注意到行人匆匆避雨時，鞋底在地面濕報紙上留下的印記。待地面乾透後，這些紙張形成了新的凹凸輪廓，記錄下人們躲雨時走過的痕跡。
藝術家決定將部分創作實踐集中於製作具有明顯凹凸紋理的紙質作品。為塑造紙張形態，他在1974至1995年間製作了100多塊拼貼版畫的印版，並稱之為「母版」。這一製作過程無疑得益於他少年時在江門建築裝飾作坊當學徒時掌握的木工技藝。利用這些母版，他創作了約3000幅拼貼版畫，每幅作品需疊加六層紙張與顏料。Para Site藝術空間當前展出的「重置陌像」展覽，正是聚焦夏氏藝術實踐中的這一創作要素。
夏氏在「母版」中表達了多元藝術影響，既汲取了中國古代歷史元素，也就地取材於土瓜灣住所及工作室周邊的環境。他在作品中加入了從澳門等多個地點採集的天然材料，其中多以枯葉為主。
夏氏的作品《從古至今》（1983年）展現了其對甲骨文的藝術詮釋。作品中，枯葉與藤蔓被嵌入版面，並以中英雙語刻下「香港」字樣。版面上還鐫刻著風格近似甲骨文的文字——這一已知最古老的漢字形態，最初鐫刻於龜甲獸骨之上。此意象對於幾乎所有在香港和中國大陸接受過教育的人來說都感到熟悉：甲骨文是商朝（約公元前1600-1046年）存在的實證，孩子們從小就被教導瞭解這些文物及其上所刻的文字，以此來認同自己的中華文化根源。
夏碧泉的「母版」不僅被視作藝術創作的工具，其本身就是獨立的藝術作品——兼具馬賽克、浮雕與拼貼的特質。這一特性在《神聖》（1975年）中體現得尤為顯著：該作品呈現出龐大而複雜的構圖。佈局包含一個看似幾何塔的結構：從梯形的基座開始，向上延伸出矩形的軀幹。頂部有一個菱形，內部包含三角形、正方形，最中心是一個圓形。構成這塊母版的各個部件呈現出13種不同紋理，其自然材質的多樣性遠超展覽中的其他作品。
是次Para Site的展覽中，這些母版的背面也得到了展示，從而揭示夏碧泉藝術故事的另一面。這些通常被隱藏的背面清晰展現了夏碧泉如何運用那些很可能來自土瓜灣的木制托盤和板條箱——這些材料不僅作為創作載體，更被他用作記錄製作和銷售拼貼版畫的賬本。
仔細觀察，你會發現一些名字反覆出現在不同母版的記錄中。如，「Nigel」幾乎可以肯定是已故《南華早報》藝術評論家Nigel Cameron，他曾在1972年到1994年期間為該報撰寫評論。記錄中還顯示，夏氏曾為波蘭、西德以及香港本地的展覽製作過版畫。
展覽中有件極易被忽視的展品——一張從夏碧泉土瓜灣「思考工作室」借用的矮桌。藝術家在這張簡樸的桌子上完成部分創作。不難想象他坐在桌旁工作的場景：時而鈐印，時而捶打，時而繪制，不厭其煩地疊加層層紙料與顏料，直至拼貼版畫漸次成形，合於心意。這張桌子或許也是夏氏與來訪者交流的地方，一同探討他從工作室滿架出版物中汲取的新理念或文獻參考。
是次Para Site的展覽主要呈現了夏碧泉的母版、拼貼版畫和一些水粉畫，但其意義遠不止於此。根據藝術家女兒的所述，「重置陌像」是夏碧泉作品在31年來的首次個展。這個展覽回溯了夏碧泉的藝術實踐，這些作品一直存放在他堆滿物品的工作室中，自2009年10月他去世後，多年來幾乎塵封未動。
如今，夏碧泉主要作為一位重要檔案編纂者而聞名，他建立了百科全書式的個人檔案庫，其中包含詳盡的展覽影像記錄和文化人物的紀實瞬間。自1980年代初購置首台相機開始，直至2009年逝世，他持續進行著攝影記錄工作，如同其精心創作的每幅拼貼版畫一般，為香港藝術生態加入了多層次的文獻證據和參照體系。展覽「重置陌像」通過重新審視其多元藝術實踐，完整呈現了這位自學成才的藝術家如何在數十年間建立起廣泛的作品體系，並留存了香港藝術界的獨特記錄。