This is a very fundamental version of my research proposal for the admission interview of MAFA studies at CUHK Fine Arts. It was written right after attending Prof. Ho Siu-kee's admission talk in 2019, and there was no pandemic at that time. Now, the Kowloon Walled City Series is my graduation project. Looking back to my original idea before the admission, will there be some similarities between the research proposal and my current creative development?

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CUHK Fine Arts – Master of Arts in Fine Arts Programme
Research proposal
Name of applicant: LEE KWUN LEUNG VINCENT
Aim and goal for studying the MA programme:
I operate my independent art studio at On Fat Industrial Building of Kwai Hing since
2016, the year which ViuTV channel was founded. My major creative medium is
acrylic painting on canvas, whereas I teach Western Calligraphy Course as my art
career.
I pursue a “guerilla warfare” strategy in handling with my art entrepreneurship. I
never have a fixed style of expression. I experiment different types of themes with
inspirations from daily life issues. Sometimes, I dare to try some topics that
transcend the moral baseline, such as the description of sexual intercourse among
twinks. I regard my portfolio development as much similar to the interdisciplinary
presentation inside a gallery booth of an art fair.
Fundamentally, the creative philosophies that I learnt in my study era were based on
the narrative and conceptual ideas. For example, I did the “Anson Chan Series” as my
graduation project which showcased my connection with social issues. However,

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once getting in touch with the career society, I initially feel helpless in upholding this
academic persistence. Veteran art masters and collectors expect me to do something
that cope with the style of “Civic Painting Society Camp”, as everybody from the art
scene likes to do urban sketching without creative thinkings. Even though I hope to
strike a balance between creative art and realistic art, I mostly compromise with the
requests of “Civic Painting Society Camp” for some of the art exhibitions I
encountered during my three-years of operating my Kwai Hing studio in order to
remain an enough amount of visitors.
Photos above: My paintings during the Sai Kung Art & About 2017 were very
innovative in chrominance and compositions.

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Photos above: But, for the “Innermost” four-person art exhibition at Artscowork in
Nov 2019, I changed to select still life and landscape painting in order to fulfill visitors’
expectations on my Realism skills.
Indeed, I want to transcend the verge between Realism and Expressionism by
studying more Cultural Theories from the MA programme. The Cultural Theories
enables me to think about the philosophical matters like everyday cultures, identity
politics, gender issues, sexual differences, utopianism and post-coloniality. Art is not
just for artisan-level beauty. It is also for self-breakthroughs in visions, ideas, and
presentation of substances. I hope that my psychological status of perceiving art
contexts can undergo enlightenments in which I can condone all sorts of material
possibilities on paper or canvases.

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Research plan:
Jiang Zhaohe (蔣兆和; 9 May 1904 – 15 April 1986) was a Chinese artist who played
a leading role in the modernization of Chinese painting. At the beginning of the 20th
century, he incorporated elements of western painting to portray the great changes
in Chinese culture. His work reflects his concern over the cruel realities of life and
people's sorrows and differs from the work of artists who showed an indifference
towards social reality.
His works describe the real lives of poor people and the cruelty of society. They
shocked society at the difficult time of the Japanese occupation and used a realistic
style to portray that dark, hard time. His works are collected in the Painting
Collection of Jiang Zhaohe and the National Art Museum of China.
He also published books on painting skills and methods of teaching painting. For
example, "Problems in Teaching Chinese Figure Painting" (《國畫人物寫生的教學問
題》
), " On Drawing Education in Chinese Painting" (
《關於中國畫的素描教學》
), and
"The Rules of Chinese Ink Figure Painting" (《中國水墨人物畫的造型規律》), and
others. Jiang Zhaohe was one of the most important painters in the introduction of
chiaroscuro and western style figure and portraiture to Chinese brush and ink

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painting. His shared with Xu Beihong a firm commitment to realism and a social
consciousness that found powerful expression in his art.
The MA Fine Arts programme acknowledges researchers who can instill their
eyesights of Chinese art histories and Chinese cultural appreciations to their
contemporary art creations. I hope to revive the reformative spirits of Jiang Zhaohe
while experimenting my acrylic figure painting, and I would like to see if Jiang’s
ink-brush visions can be seen in my Western art portfolios or not.
Of course, there are certain criteria that I must bear no matter for ink or acrylic:
- Proportional human anatomy
- Proper distribution of dimness
- Vibrancy in structural brushstrokes
- Bitterness of impoverished persons’ facial features
- Roughness in muscular details and textures
Xu Beihong did invite strong men to serve as nude models for presenting proper
postures. His masterpiece “When there is a will, there is a way” is a successful genre
painting in Modern China. Can I bear in mind with such “proletariatism” notion to
search for some suitable targets from the civic strata to present some non-secular
virtues? For sure, I hope to keep practicing the observational drawings to let my
strokes be fluent when cultivating my unique visual stories.

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Sanyu (常玉, Chang Yu) was a Chinese-French artist that created prints, drawings,
and paintings. His work fused the histories of European still-life and figurative
painting with the traditions of Chinese calligraphy. Considered a master of form and
color, he was sometimes referred to as “the Chinese Matisse.” Born Chang Yu on
October 14, 1901 in Nanchong, China, he was tutored in calligraphy and painting
from a young age. In 1921, he travelled to Paris to study at the École nationale
supérieure des Beaux-Arts and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. While in Paris,
he discovered the work of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. In 1948, Sanyu travelled
to New York where he became a close friend of the photographer Robert Frank. It
was Frank who later established the Sanyu Scholarship Fund at Yale University in his
honor. Today, a large quantity of his work can be found in the collection of the
National Museum of History in Taiwan. The artist died in his studio on August 12,
1966 in Paris, France.
While most of the Chinese art students aspired to enroll in the esteemed École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Sanyu preferred the less academic environment
of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Here, Sanyu plunged into what to him was
the exotic world of nude drawing. One can imagine the excitement the young Sanyu
must have felt being in a studio where nude models, forbidden at home, posed at
arm's reach. In this free and uninhibited environment, he could experiment with
Western sketching techniques to explore and express the lines of the human form.
Sanyu’s early works in Paris comprise exclusively ink and pencil drawings of nudes
and figures, of which over 2000 examples survive today.
Chang Yu’s style is a bit similar to Master Ting Hin-yung’s ink-figure style

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I really admire Chang Yu’s courage in “deconstructionism”, which means a distortion
of human anatomy to a level of Minimalism. But, at the same time, his works are a
kind of Chinese literati painting. Can I do something that the spirit of Plasticism is
preserved whereas the expressionistic features of Chang Yu coexist harmoniously?
Different from Jiang Zhaohe, Chang Yu liked to portray ladies from noble class. What
sort of human targets should I focus on to highlight the features of contemporary
world? Can I find something humorous from my daily life to convey some absurd
phenomenon by applying Chang Yu’s style? Even the medium is acrylic on canvas, can
my adoption of Chang Yu’s style make the whole piece of work appear like a Chinese
piece of work?
I guess, up to the final stage of assessing my graduation project, maybe I dare to
paint a monumental horizontal Chinese ink painting by applying Chang Yu’s figures in
a multifaceted vision. This will be getting different from Xu Beihong’s traditional
approach of Realism in creating a genre Chinese-ink anatomical figure painting.
Example of genre painting in oil medium: Dong Xiwen

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How to realize my creative aspiration?
Indeed, I set a target of experimenting certain visual effects, like the blue tone of
William Kentridge’s pastel style but using acrylic on canvas to express. The outcome
was satisfactory, and it comes out like a contemporary Western art with Hong Kong
features. I can even explore homosexual themes by applying this style. If I have
entered the MA programme, this can be one of my established styles for
continuation but of course I can further invent more other new alternatives with
similar features.
I see some cases from the FAA students or alumni that their vision of portraying
human figures are distorted to be quite similar to the vague iconographies from
fairy-tale reminiscences. It is totally a sort of impression. It is a return to the
composition of pigments. Can William Kentridge’s blue tone be used for this
representation of impression? It can be experimented on canvases in the future.
Possibility?
There is a kind of modern Chinese art called “cai mo” (coloured-ink painting, 彩墨). I
wonder if the “Shiqing” (石青) being applied onto the xuanzhi paper can create such
vivid blue effect or not. Of course I will render the transformation of moisturized ink
effect to fabricate the “mo yi” (ink leisure). Li Keran’s landscape painting is also in an
unique effect that “Zhubiao” (朱標) is of a much greater proportion than dark ink, so
I can follow this direction in Chinese art language development.

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The Cultural Theory course provided by the MA programme enables me to learn
more about Gender Issues and Sexual Differences. For some of my works at my Kwai
Hing studio, I dare to explore something about homosexual behaviours. Can Jiao
Zhaohe or Chang Yu’s style give me some insights to do something very Chinese and
quite inclined to the narrative vision of “genre painting”?
If rendering a genre painting about sex, image recomposition is a key matter of
concern. Should I concretely employ several nude models for still-life references? Or
should I just imitate the digital images with transformations? Should I just
manipulate my image archive to draw whatever sexual behaviours I long for by
putting aside the formal Realism expectations from “Civic Painting Society Camp”?

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I did employ lifeguard twink as my nude model for my nude painting workshop at my
Kwai Hing studio. This project persisted for one year.
If the experimentation on either acrylic or ink figure continues in my MA Fine Arts
studies, can the fruits of nudity be accompanied by a digital documentation? For
example, a video recording can be done onto the performance art of this particular
nude model, together with sound effects (i.e. sound and multiple media studies).
Will there be a hand draft to record the innermost messages from this nude model to
convey certain virtues about sexual differences? Will there be a video or
photography record to present the sequence of this lifeguard model’s livelihood, as
well as his sexual-related habits like the purchase of condoms and underwears?
Conclusion of my proposal:
All in all, I hope to make good use of my Modern Chinese Art History knowledge to
explore some innovative figurative languages with an addition of enriching my
sociological and philosophical awareness through the “Cultural Theories” course.