Fu-On Chung
Talisman

Fu-On Chung’s new painting is exploratory: it works itself out by figuring things out as it goes—things worth feeling, experiencing.  Within these paintings the viewer can see traces of how that may have happened. They can trace gesture, chromatic adventure, along with layerings, recursions, serendipities—and how serendipity comes from happenstance. It is possible to sense the spreading of planes, receding of space, surging of colour, writhing of line and to feel luminosity blooming, grids veiling, form equivocating, ends fraying.

These paintings say: as in life, resolution is always provisional. There’s always work to be done, places to go, fun to be had, along with things to consider, celebrate, or fix. Loose ends abide; loose ends hedge against an aesthetic becoming anaesthetic. There’s a soft spot for camp impertinence—an aesthetic that relishes being out-of-control as much as it is firmly in control. It all finds welcome in Fu’s painting. 

– Ian Jervis