All posts tagged: 蘇詠寶

Wing Po So 蘇詠寶

Published by Caroline Ha Thuc

Wing Po So’s studio is tiny and very tidy: between a large collection of shells, dried molluscs and plants, various other species rest on shelves in glass jars, all properly labelled. The Hong Kong artist, who grew up in a family of Chinese medicine practitioners, also surrounds herself with essential books about Chinese medicine, including a two-volume work dating from the Ming dynasty. Her practice confronts this scientific background with her personal observation of nature, as she transforms and creates organic yet surreal sculptures and installations. Caroline Ha Thuc: You grew up spending a lot of time in your parents’ traditional Chinese medicine shop in Hong Kong, and this family background plays an important part in your art practice. When and why did you decide to draw from this experience and to become an artist? Wing Po So: It was due to the closure of our family’s shop in Soho [in 2012]. I spent all my childhood in this medicine shop and in the neighborhood. Several months after the closure, my parents decided to rebuild …

Lau Hok Shing, So Wing Po, Zhang Ruyi 劉學成、蘇詠寶、張如怡

Published by Artomity Magazine

Amid columns of art books at Blindspot Gallery’s Wong Chuk Hang office is what looks like an object belonging in a Chinese scholar’s study. But stare at it a bit longer and an image of a tear gas cloud – a common sight on Hong Kong streets in the second half of 2019 – comes to mind. Suddenly, an object that supposedly inspires turns into one that muddles and impedes. This ambiguity threads through most of the works at The Palm at the End of the Mind, a group show by three artists, Lau Hok Shing, So Wing Po and Zhang Ruyi. The title, lifted from the first line of Wallace Stevens’ poem Of Mere Being, is something of a riddle. Which palm does Stevens refer to here – the palm of a hand or a palm tree? (It turns out to be the latter.) And never mind what lies at the end of mind – what, precisely, is the end of the mind? Despite the mind being human, the poem appears to be reaching …