Image: University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong
The exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of Zhao Hai Tien’s artistic journey as a painter and her explorations as a Hong Kong artist, both locally and internationally. It traces a movement from her early New York-inflected abstractions to a later visual language incorporating meditation, calligraphy and cosmic imagery.
Zhao Hai Tien’s work is distinguished by a poignant confluence of abstract expression, spiritual depth and cross-cultural dialogue. Artworks lent by Zhao Hai Tien and private collectors are included in the exhibition.
Her artistic evolution and creative explorations span airbrush and automotive spray paint on wooden folded screens, acrylic on canvas, calligraphic experiments, large-scale public murals and oil paintings. The range of media described in the exhibition extends from painted folded screens and canvases to calligraphic work, murals and oil painting.
Born and raised in Shanghai, Zhao Hai Tien completed her early studies in Shanghai and Hong Kong before moving to New York, where she earned a BFA from Cooper Union in 1969. She was among the few of her generation to train overseas before China’s opening in 1979. Immersed in New York’s dynamic art scene in the 1960s, she began experimenting with abstraction, transforming her artistic language in bold and innovative ways.
The digital exhibition is curated by Dr Shuo Hua.
