Siu Fai Wing (national member of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, director of China Artists Association, chairman of Hong Kong Artists Association (Xiang Gang Mei Xie)

    Recently, I have accidentally found out that my daughter Fun Kee has finished more than 100 pieces of oil paintings when cleaning our art studio. I was vaguely aware that she has continuously self-studied painting, however, I was surprised that she has already accumulated so many art works during last 5 to 6 years. After taking a look at each piece, I was surprisingly impressed. Although still not very mature, Fun Kee's art works did have unique personal character with well thought through expression. In order to avoid having my personal bias, I also asked a few friends for their opinion when they visited. They all praised her after I showed them her artworks. In particular, she was able to jump off the traditional and institutional norms to explore her own set of painting language which should be appreciated. Therefore, they suggested Fun Kee to hold an exhibition. The exhibition would be considered as a good summary of all her efforts during last couple years. It would be a great encouragement to her artistic career path. According to Master Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals, "People do not evade their own enemies while recommending outsiders. People do not evade their own son while recommending insiders." For all sorts of reasons, the exhibition was finally born.

    Art history has been Fun Kee's main focus which should be her expertise. She has worked very hard and her articles have been frequently published. She has painted with her spare time. This unintentional fit with the ancient truth that academics and skill are mutual benefit. However, I never encourage my children to paint because I know the hardships as a painter. Initially, I don't even agree with her to learn oil painting. Since her study and work has been related to Chinese traditional painting, Fun Kee would have more advantage to pursuit in the same area. She does secretly have a heart for oil painting although she respects my opinion. I am glad that she has finished so many oil paintings after couple years have passed. What makes me even more delighted is that I can still feel her true spirit of Chinese culture even though she chooses to pursuit oil painting.

    The difficulty of painting is to explore one's own unique artistic language. Fun Kee has studied painting without any specific teacher, but with the help from her culture knowledge and academic accumulation. Since her childhood, she has developed to broaden her horizons through the guidance from many friends and teachers. As a result, she has been able to jump out of the traditional forms of constraints without being bound to any particular artistic school. She has been able to step over the institutional barriers of general education model and inject the perception of Chinese culture into her oil painting. By using the form of Western painting to convey Chinese culture and traditional charm, she has created her own artistic appearance.

    There are 58 pieces of Fun Kee's art works showing at this exhibition. The paintings include two phases categorized by time, theme, and style. From 2011 to 2014, it could be considered as a budding period, which mainly focuses on drawing sleeping lotus. The style would be realistic and full of decorative. From 2015 and onward, it should have been regarded as a period of development for depicting lotus with misty changes on the picture and more straightforward expression.

    French impressionist painter Monet spent all his life to chase the light and shadow of nature and had a lot of preference for the subject of sleeping lotus. Fun Kee's early works have been inspired by Monet; however, she is not willing to be a mechanical follower. Instead she tries to grab each emotional touching moment and feels, as well as the throbbing of nature and the soul with a unique view from women perspective. Looking at her art works such as Spring, Bright and Autumn, Fun Kee depicts quiet and comfortable lotus pond, where leaves of sleeping lotus are with rich texture. She delineates the crown-like lotus with overall various layers showing delicate soft, quiet, and beautiful mood. It is noteworthy that although her works are mainly based on the realistic sleeping lotus at this stage, there are also works depicting close-range lotuses like Stand Gracefully. Also with the Haziness series of expressive works, we can see that she has not satisfied with the current form of realism and has started to explore new themes and style.

    Su Shi's poetry stated, "Good painting cannot just focus on the shape, good poet cannot just focus on the external appearance of things". Aesthetic is the common pursuit of mankind, however, for the performance of beauty, it does not need to be confined just to the form. Since 2015, Fun Kee's style has become more and more freehand, without being limited to realistic writing. This change has been benefited not only from her hard work on art exploration, but also from her cultural accomplishment as well as her accurate interpretation of art history. After setting aside the limitation of specific details, the brushes in her hands has become more agile. With the apparently random colors and lines, her strokes have naturally flowed in color showing her sincere inner feelings as well as the illusion of artistic effect.

    During this period, in terms of techniques of expression, Fun Kee has fused more Chinese artistic ideas into the creation of oil paintings, such as the general use of the scattered perspective method, and the art concept of focusing more on the spirit instead of just the appearance. Her style has been fearless with more sophisticated ideas. For instance, her work Mid-Autumn depicts the night of the lotus pond with the moon reflected in the water, where residual lotus leaves standing side by side. Other examples are Flower Buds Just Ready to Burst, Midsummer, Golden Autumn, and so on. All of them adopt the mix of color accumulation and spot color to outline the colorful context of lotus leaf with tension and energy. On her works Reflection of Lotus Pond and Reflection in Ripples, Fun Kee has tried to express the quiet scene of lotus pond through a relatively simple and lively color with a sense of uniqueness. This really heralds a second evolution of her technique. Within her 2017 works such as Song of Midsummer, Golden Fall, Green Dream, Dance of Wind, and Clear Autumn, Kun Kee has intended to strengthen the integration of elements from both Chinese and Western painting. Looking at how the image of the lotus pond, the lotus leaves, the residual lotus and other objects have been refined into a more personal image, it shows that she has continued to persistently pursue how to surpass the concrete object and directly explore into people's heart as well as natural nature.

    Han Yu's Teacher's Words stated, "the students are not necessarily inferior to their teacher, the teacher is not necessarily smarter than the students". To me, children do not have to be inferior to their parents. Meanwhile, parents do not necessarily have to be better than their children. Given that Fun Kee's first solo exhibition soon to be held, as a father, I hope she will not be arrogant and will be down-to-earth in every step of her life as well as her artistic career. If so, her artistic achievements will be promising.

("Painting at Heart besides Historical Research", Foreword of "Step by Step - The Lotus Pond Series Oil Paintings Exhibition of Siu Fun Kee")