Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong is delighted to announce Tang Kwong San: Rootstock, an evocative solo exhibition running from September 12 to November 9, 2024. This marks Tang Kwong San’s inaugural solo showcase with the gallery. The exhibition employs the bauhinia plant as a central motif, using it as a lens to explore diasporic identity, likened to a sterile plant grafted from layers of intergenerational histories. Tang’s latest works, which include graphite drawings, oil paintings, handmade objects, photography, and installations, delve into the interplay between deconstruction and reconstruction, probing how the fragments of our identities are torn apart and pieced back together.
Born in Dongguan in 1992, Tang relocated to Hong Kong with his father at the tender age of five, later joined by his mother five years thereafter. Navigating life between two homes and the transitions from colonial to postcolonial Hong Kong, Tang’s artwork is imbued with a profound sense of loss and mourning.
Discovered in Hong Kong by a French Catholic Missionary in 1880, the bauhinia × blakeana, also known as the Hong Kong Orchid, is a plant that cannot self-reproduce and must be propagated through grafting. In his new series of paintings, Tang draws parallels between the dependent nature of the bauhinia and his own diasporic identity, which often feels shaped by circumstances and difficult to define.
Rootstock employs found objects and transposed plants to scrutinize the familial, social, and historical fragments that compose one’s identity. Through the echoes of destruction and Tang’s meticulous documentation, these fragments are reassembled, transforming grief into a poignant expression of hope.
