MichAEL nock | New Works

Dates: November - December 2019

Michael Nock has lived and worked in Hong Kong for over 40 years. His observations of the rapidly changing city have been a major influence on Nock's recent exhibition.

Through a series of informal compositions with loose strokes of unmodulated colour, Nock has created a series of cityscapes for the viewer to wander freely through. To get lost in the noisy streets and hazy harbours. 

From the artists' viewpoint, the landscape below is somewhere to look 'at' but not be present 'in'. For Nock this is when the 'landscape' becomes 'place'. 

In his latest series of paintings, the eye travels away from its high vantage point, down the valleys and in amongst the chattering strokes of the buildings and mountains. We are now in the place in which the artist lives. It is a collection of remembered pieces of a city and echoes of former representations.

While viewing Hong Kong the artist must be present in their concept of place and how it defines a necessary and integral component to our greater identity. An occupied landscape cannot be viewed and so we must step back and view the city as a sum of its parts. What sort of 'place' is Hong Kong. What would an onlooker see from up on its hills? 

Questions like these, now more than ever, must be asked and answered.