With just pencil and paper, Sarah Tse and Frank Gehry create an exceptional journey like no other

What you seed is what you get; and whatever you sow, that you will also reap. It sounds like a cliché, but history has proven their truth. Look back and ask yourself how many immortal legends linger, whose success serves only the needs of the vain?

After visiting two exhibitions being held concurrently at Island East in Hong Kong, I’ve come to the conclusion that life is too short, so let your own enthusiasm lead you on a roll.

Is it mere coincidence that the two exhibitions are also the first ever to be held in Hong Kong by the artists? Outside the Box | Frank Gehry, and Ecstasy and Captivity by Sarah Tse, are not the same, but also not so different from each other.

As a renowned Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Frank Gehry needs no further introduction. His works, including the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and New York By Gehry (also featured in the July 2011 issue of Perspective magazine), from conceptual hand-sketches to images, alongside intricate models are presented that offers rare insights into his unique creative process.

In fact, it’s his collaboration with Swire Properties on the development of The Opus at 53 Stubbs Road which has brought Gehry and his work to Hong Kong. Throughout the exhibition, his work, his progress, his creative journey is rawly revealed to our naked eyes.

Like Gehry, Sarah Tse’s major tools to express her world of complexity are also pencil and paper. Over the course of a half-hour conversation, Sarah proves to be truly a live spark. Also an awardee of Perspective’s 40 Under 40 young talent programme this year, she stresses time and again that becoming an artist wasn’t on her original agenda.

While still a student, like the rest, she ticked what she didn’t like and what was left was art. And so began her adventure and that’s also when she has discovered a knack of depicting journeys of her childhood memories, mixed with imaginary characters both happy and mysterious, not unlike those which appear in Alice in Wonderland, through her drawings.

Indeed, the intrinsic sensitivity Sarah embeds in her works is both sensual and sexual. Through her works, she uses different symbolism to reveal the basic human desires she has investigated through daily life. In fact, it's easy to get lost in her drawings by a simple glance; each and every layer and texture requires an in-depth look.

When asked why, after almost 20 exhibitions overseas, it is only now that she is staging her first in Hong Kong, her answer was more than a little worrying: Hong Kong is still no place for upcoming artists, she says.

All that we see at her show are the sole result of her own ambition. “I am not good at making choices, but once I have decided to do something, I will work very hard to achieve it,” she says.

From the early days of pitching her idea to Swire Properties a year ago, to curating the journey of the exhibition, every single effort has been made by Tse. Her determination and enthusiasm has meant her show is a real success; after this, she will take on another adventure in New York... We here at Perspective wish her the best of luck!

To Sept 11
Ecstasy and Captivity – Sarah Tse’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong
Venue: Linkbridge, Lincoln House, Taikoo Place, Island East
Tel: 2844 4949
Email: chrischeung@swireproperties.com
www.sarahtse.com

To Oct 27
Outside the Box by Frank Gehry – Hong Kong’s first exhibition of the works of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry
Venue: Artis Tree, 1/F, Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Island East, Hong Kong
Tel: 2844 3887
Email: enquiry@gehryexhibition.com
www.gehryexhibition.com.hk/en