About

Kwok Tsui

Born 1989, China

I am originally from Hong Kong, China, and now reside in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

My painting practice centres on my diasporic experiences as a Chinese immigrant in the West. I explore the theme of displacement and the notion of home. My paintings are constructed from visual suggestions of belonging, locations and borders with recognisable but non-specific landscape elements, acting as echoes of remembered places, emotions and colour palettes. I work at scale, with the intention of representing a shared experience echoing memories through the act of seeing, rather than depicting literal representations I use the language of abstraction. The muted and largely monochromatic surfaces of my paintings are composed of many thin layers of paint which reveal traces of each previous existing iteration and identity. 

Silhouetted shapes represent a range of associative and representational elements of memory, with attention to detail that solicits time for reflection. 

A unified linear visual direction created by brush strokes appears on the surface of my painting, representing the idea of unity and acceptance – everything flows together in one horizontal direction, all belonging and flowing together equally as a group.