Ink Art Ensembles
– Exhibition Series in the Greater Bay Area

"Ink Art Ensembles - Greater Bay Area Art Exhibition Series" was born out of the success of the previous exhibition series, aiming to explore the inheritance and innovation of ink and wash art. Looking back at the period from 2021 to 2024, the Greater Bay Area Art Exhibition Series "Art>< Creativity" held 12 exhibitions in nine cities in the Greater Bay Area, bringing works by 25 Hong Kong artists, designers and a Shenzhen media artist, communicating with mainland audiences with a new vision of creativity and art. In this exhibition series, Hong Kong artists will use ink and wash as a medium to link and correspond with artists from other cities in the Greater Bay Area in a "harmonious but different" way. "Different Ensembles" is a homophone for "duet" in Cantonese, and we hope to play a new rhythm of different tunes in contemporary ink and wash through the exhibition.

The theme of this exhibition series, "New Dynamics of Qi Yun", originates from "Spirit and Liveliness", which is not only the first of the "Six Laws" of painting proposed by the Southern Qi painter Xie He, but also the key to evaluating traditional paintings. Ink painting uses the brush as spirit and the ink as rhyme, which resonates and harmonizes, and the flow and momentum of life are naturally revealed. In the context of Guangdong culture, "lively" also means "new movement". The innovative Lingnan School of Painting has brought new momentum to ink painting. The cultural atmosphere and the rhythm of communication played by the Greater Bay Area cities rooted in Lingnan culture in the pursuit of common ground while reserving differences embody this "new movement".

The “Ink Art Ensembles - Greater Bay Area Art Exhibition Series” brings together artists from Hong Kong and the Mainland, including Fung Wing-kee, Yau Wing-fung, Ng Kuen-lun, Choi Tak-yee, Xing Lili, _.WAV_Studio_ (Cao Yuxi and LAU Hiu Kong), OU Ting-chu and Wen Qiuwen, to redefine the connotation of “ink and wash” through painting, sculpture, installation, multimedia art and fashion design, bringing new vitality to “ink and wash”.

The art exhibition series is organized by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, and co-planned by the Hong Kong Art Promotion Office and Shenzhen Frontier Fringe Art Center. From 2024 to 2026, two guest curators, Hong Ko and Eric Zhu, will be invited to curate five exhibitions in four Greater Bay Area cities, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan and Dongguan, inviting the public to appreciate the exploration results of contemporary ink art. The first exhibition was unveiled in Shenzhen as a joint exhibition, which is not only the prelude of "Ink Art Ensembles-Greater Bay Area Art Exhibition Series", but also part of the 2024 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture and Arts Festival. The other four independent exhibitions are presented in the form of a collaboration between a Hong Kong artist and an artist unit from other Greater Bay Areas.