UMAG_STARTS
Part 1. Painting 

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While archaeologists and historians have yet determined the origin of painting, ancient men and women used color in decoration and ornamentation by scratching the outlines of people and animals upon slate and bone. Traces of this kind of primitive work still remain to us on the pottery and stone implements of the cave dwellers.

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Today, painting is generally understood as the creation of certain aesthetic qualities in a two-dimensional visual language. Elements of this visual language—colors, lines, textures, and shapes—are applied in various ways to create visual forms of light, space, movement, and contrast on a flat surface. These elements are combined into expressive patterns in order to represent real or imaginary phenomena, to interpret a narrative theme, or to create wholly abstract images. 

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Painting is the theme of the inaugural section of UMAG_STArts, and the recently acquired work by the Hong Kong artist Ng Lung Wai will be displayed as the highlight of the thematically-focused exhibition at our newly refurbished study gallery. The medium and technique of Wai’s painting, as well as the way the work was created, daringly challenge the traditional boundaries of the painted art, interrogating and altering our perceptions of paining as a convention of art. This digital learning platform not only contains an essay about the development of painting in China through the UMAG collection and a biographical account of Ng Lung Wai, but also includes a pre-recorded interview with the artist Ng Lung Wai and the process of his creative practice.  

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