Contemporary relics from sculptor Leelee Chan showcase her passion for making art from found objects
- Call it art to define 2020 for people not yet born – Leelee Chan is among five sculptors creating ‘relics’ in collaboration with Hong Kong antiques stores
- Chan specialises in art made from found objects and materials, including ceramics – her parents were antique dealers
Nestled among Tang dynasty horses, stoic Han dynasty figurines, and a 3,000-year-old Neolithic vase is a miniature bust of a woman with a fresh yellow flower tucked behind her ear, protruding from a seashell. This whimsically adorned Ming dynasty artefact is in fact a contemporary artwork by 35-year-old Hong Kong sculptor Leelee Chan.
“I wanted to do something fun and playful,” she says of the work, which adds a humorous twist to the dignified displays of funerary art at Bonnie Lai Antiquities.
Chan’s work is part of a group exhibition, “Up Close”, a collaborative project involving four antique stores on Hollywood Road in Hong Kong’s Central district that aims to spark a dialogue between history and modernity and between art and craft.
Curators Hilda Chan and Iven Cheung commissioned five contemporary sculptors – Oscar Chan Yik-long, Lam Tung-pang, Lau Hok-shing, Bing Lee, and Chan – to create contemporary relics, ones which define the present for people in the future.
Chan addresses her obsession with found objects and materials – the basis of her art, for which she was recently awarded the BMW Art Journey, a prize presented to artists taking part in Art Basel Hong Kong (usually emerging artists, but broadened to mid-career artists this year because of the pandemic).
