Some of the world's greatest minds hit their 'eureka!' moment in the most unusual circumstances: while sitting beneath an apple tree or soaking in a bathtub, for example. For Hong Kong-born artist David Chan Tsze-wei, it was when a waitress spilled a plate of mapo dofu (spicy bean curd) on the table.
He was impressed when he saw the red sauce on the white cloth.
'I thought, 'Hey, what a pattern',' Chan says, recalling the moment his passion for Chinese calligraphy flared. 'I found that the taste of food and the taste of life were so similar that only calligraphy could illustrate them better.'
His ongoing exhibition at Harbour City reflects the artist's fascination with taste, showcasing his trademark cai mo, or coloured ink calligraphy. The Taste of Tao exhibits his latest artworks, which play on the themes of hun dun (chaos), wei (taste) and dao.
'We need to taste the dao,' he says. 'The dao is the philosophy that has been influencing Chinese art for thousands of years, it is the way of life and way of nature. Chaos, or hun dun, has the meaning of the beginning. It is about returning to the most natural and most pure stage, like a baby's innocent state.'
Born in 1950, Chan first studied traditional Chinese calligraphy at a young age under the tutelage of his father. It didn't immediately appeal to him. 'I didn't like anything Chinese [then], especially Chinese art. I thought, why should I waste time using such a difficult tool as a Chinese brush? A pencil was easier.'
Chan later went to live in France and also New York and had a few exhibitions in Europe and North America, including a solo show in Toronto. Despite these, he wasn't satisfied. 'I wanted to be an artist, but I failed to do so,' he says. 'Once I witnessed western art, I asked myself, 'What else can I do?''
