Leung Mee Ping

Leung Mee Ping
Leung Mee Ping in 2007
Born	1961 (age 54–55)
Alma mater	École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
Occupation	Artist
Chinese name
Chinese	梁美萍
Hanyu Pinyin	Liáng Měipíng
Yale Romanization	Lèuhng Méihpìhng
Jyutping	Loeng4 Mei5-ping4

Leung Mee Ping (梁美萍; born 1961) is a Hong Kong artist.^[1] Her works integrate elements and platforms of theatre, design, commercial space and social space, so as to extend performance or action through a research-based practive progressing to experimental interaction and integration.^[2] Those works can be defined as issue-based creativity. Leung is interested in researching for visual culture, space saving creativity, traditional handicraft, installation, public art and community art.^[3]

Education and career

Leung received her BFA from L’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts a Paris, France and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts, LA, U.S.A. and Ph.D at Chinese University of Hong Kong (Religious & Cultural Studies Department).^[3] She is an Associate Professor of Visual Culture, Space Saving Creativity, Traditional Handicraft, Installation, Public art and Community Art, at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Works

Her works mainly focuses on and concern for the ethic, community and memories of the human living situation,^[3] and also examine daily life through perception of daily life itself.^[4] Art genres include mixed-media, video, multi-media installation and site-specific event-based project.

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Awards

Personal

Leung Mee Ping grew up in a broken family, she won a drawing competition when she was studying at primary school. Since that time, she started to fall into drawing and calligraphy.

Leung moved out when she was very young after her parents separated. Despite this, she has always been close to her mother and sisters, whom support her and are the main theme of Leung’s artworks. After working in a book store for two years, Leung saved up and got into École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Teabags as mixed media

In 1983, Leung Mee Ping left Hong Kong and began her art study in Paris. She had learnt to paint in abstract and expressionist styles.^[7] Before she graduated from L’ École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts a Paris in 1991, she started exploring different materials to create art works. Because of her friends’ death, “Elsewhere (1991-2014)” was initiated at that time.^[8] It is a mixed media installation consisting of thousands of tea bags sewn together. The repetitive action of sewing teabags symbolize the artist’s means of meditative contemplation on being and death.^[9] She won Premier prix Rocheron Award for this work in 1991.^[10] A part from tea bags, various objects such as quail eggs, photos, tiles etc. were used in Leung’s mixed media art and installation works.^[11]

After she came back in Hong Kong in 1994, she held her first solo exhibition “Mixed-Media Work by LEUNG MEE PING” in Fringe Club.^[12] Besides, she worked as an art editor of the Hong Kong Economic Times (hket, a financial daily in Hong Kong).^[10] She was also one of the founding members of Para Site which were founded in early 1996 as an artist-run space.^[13] In 1998, she emigrated to USA and obtained her MFA from California Institute of Arts in 2000.

Critics

Art installation: Memorise the Future (1998-2002)

"Memorise the Future (1998-2002)"

Leung has long been renowned in creating works which raise people’s concern over social environment. She used human hair as corporeal material in art.^[14] “Memorise the Future (1998-2002)” is an installation composed of over 10 thousand children shoes made of human hair (4 to 5 inches for each). Being collected from over one hundred nations, the mixed and undistinguished human hair symbolize transcended regional boundaries and the blur of individuality.^[14][15]

“Out of place (2005-2011)”

Out of place (Hong Kong Version) Video Installation

“Out of place (2005-2011)” is a series of video installation which feature different places (including Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghi, Ski Lanka and Macau). Leung followed a number of individuals wondering aimlessly through the streets of varying locales, attempting to discover new psychgeographical routes through the mapping of purposeless.^[16]

“I Miss Fanta”

“I Miss Fanta”^[17] is one of the most famous and well-known artworks in Hong Kong. It was a piece of artwork presented by Leung Mee Ping in the contemporary art exhibition held by West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. The installation located in Man Ming Lane sitting-out area in Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong, during 15 May – 10 June 2012.

“I Miss Fanta” was originally three iconic outdoor neon signs of Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Prite shown along Macus main shopping artery Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro and became an integral part of the urban landscape of the city for the past 50 years.

I Miss Fanta was Leung Mee Ping’s recent discovery that the two signs, Coca Cola and Sprite, were disappeared. It represented a title amplifying the sentiment expressed from the perspective of the signage about the dismantled past.

By displaying all the three neon signs on the ground of the park in Yau Ma Tei, which is similar to how they were found on the platform in the Coca Cola factory in Macau. At the same time, process of the move of the signs were shown in a nearby junk and recycling shop. Leung transforms all these visual symbols related to personal and collective memory into a sculptural installation. And bringing the tension between heritage conservation and urban gentrification to the surface as well.^[18] That is why many of the Hong Kong people were attracted to this artwork.

"Star Pupas"

Star Pupas^[19] was an artwork that demonstrated Leung’s care to social culture.

Leung enrolled in ‘’Fleeting Light’’, which was a large scale media arts exhibition presented by The Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The exhibition was held outside Hong Kong Science Museum during 14th September to 28th September 2014.

Leung designed a mobile app called ‘’Star Pupas’’.The reason for designing a mobile app was that Leung observed a phenomenon that people were so obessed to smart phone noadays. Scanning the image of stars from the sky, visitors can “name” the stars and leave messages to friends. The images of stars and the messages were projected on the tent. The more people will participate, the brighter the inside of the tent will be. They can even share the starlight and what they think and feel at the moment of “naming” the stars through the mobile app, to light up others’ lives with love and care.^[20]

This activity was just like collecting starlight which we rarely see noadays due to light pollution.Leung tried to tell us that not only are we far away from starry nights, we,phubbers are also gradually far away from the ones we love. Leung wanted to create something to make phubbers left up their heads and care their beloved ones.

‘’ Leung is good at making creation from real life experience and inspiration.’’ Editors from Unwire.hk said so.^[21]

"Pearl River Delta Series I: Made in Hong Kong"

Leung Mee Ping’s Pearl River Delta Series I: Made in Hong Kong was held at Osage gallery, during 1 March to 1 April 2014.It was mixed-media installation with performative elements.

‘’Leung Mee Ping’s artistic practice is essentially conceptual and investigative, and one of its strongest markers is her relentless and enduring curiousity [sic] . Leung’s mixed-media installation Made In Hong Kong is like a conceptual onion: peel away one layer of meaning and association only to find multiple layers underneath.’’^[22] commented by Valerie C Doran, who is an independent curator, critic and translator in the field of Chinese contemporary art with a special interest in cultural cross-currents and comparative art theory.

References