Our final post on #artandpolitics focuses on the work of Firenze Lai, a contemporary artist, illustrator and editorial designer from Hong Kong. Her works frequently depict anonymous figures as subjects, and explore the issues of psychological landscapes, the mind and body, human relationships, collectiveness, social experiences and space. Her paintings demonstrate a willingness to portray everyday humanity with sympathy yet anonymity, with shapes, angles and colours that evoke both recognition and distance. In this effort she was inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and his ability to capture the primal essence of things.
Our final post on #artandpolitics focuses on the work of Firenze Lai, a contemporary artist, illustrator and editorial designer from Hong Kong. Her works frequently depict anonymous figures as subjects, and explore the issues of psychological landscapes, the mind and body, human relationships, collectiveness, social experiences and space. Her paintings demonstrate a willingness to portray everyday humanity with sympathy yet anonymity, with shapes, angles and colours that evoke both recognition and distance. In this effort she was inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and his ability to capture the primal essence of things.
Lai claims she performs “figurative painting instead of portraiture because the latter is more likely pointing to individuality. This is not the only thing I want to portray; the collectiveness of individuality interests me more.” In search of the subject’s universality and ambiguity, the gender of the portrayed figures is often unknown and the bodies are distorted, implying an interconnection between face and mind, together with a struggle for personal expression. In Lai’s conception, emotions and thoughts are experienced internally but they can also be shared and empathized collectively.
Space also plays a fundamental role in her work, functioning as psychological landscapes where specific emotional situations play out. While not overly accentuated, her grim, stifling spaces seem to be specifically localised, yet they could be transposed anywhere. The sense of place and (non)belonging in her paintings highlights how individuals adapt their minds and bodies to the circumstances they find themselves in.
Lai’s oeuvre starts to tie in with politics after the social transformation she witnesses in Hong Kong between September and December 2014 as a result of the Umbrella Movement. Apart from many paintings that evoke these events, she illustrates the cover of the second issue of Harcourt Village Voice, a zine dedicated to record the events occurred at the occupation on Harcourt Road. Before the Occupy Movement, she would feel separated from society, unconcerned about politics. According to Lai, this experience helped her think, and paint, with an added layer of perception and awareness. She started questioning her own surroundings and the way the political system manipulates the citizens in various forms, including the architectural configuration of space.
In the painting “Tilted Circle” (2018) the artist is inspired from the tense situation of the protests which perfectly expresses the atmosphere of that precise socio-political moment. The circle of kneeling, faceless humans ends into a dark pit, perhaps symbolising the sense of failed balance and trust towards the political elite and the government. Being able to rely on others, to be part of a community, is now fundamental, and appears to be the only solution. Lai uses vibrant pastel hues that contrast with the intensity of the black spot in the centre, in a visual dance of figures and colours that is extremely dense in pathos.
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Image 1: Firenze Lai, Tilted Circle (2018) – oil on canvas, 110 x 140 cm 
The artist Firenze Lai in front of one of her paintings
