Hong Kong’s skyline is turned into a catwalk thanks to artist’s gift for painting skyscrapers as fashion models
For the past 10 years, Wilson Shieh has been working on a series of paintings mainly depicting women dressed as some of Hong Kong’s most iconic buildings, and it has resulted in his ‘Architecture Costume’ exhibition
Is it possible to combine voluptuous female figures with the dull-looking vertical lines of the city’s skyscrapers?
This is the question Wilson Shieh has been exploring over the last 10 years, creating a series of paintings mainly depicting women dressed up as some of the most iconic buildings of Hong Kong. Some of his latest artworks can now be seen in the exhibition “Architecture Costume”, which will be held at the Experimental Gallery of the Hong Kong Arts Centre until Sunday.
The paintings portray demur figures wrapped up in the likes of the HSBC headquarters, the Hopewell Centre or the IFC Tower. They are re-imagined by Shieh as semi-transparent dresses, with their top floors, roofs, and telecommunication repeaters becoming improbable hats.
“I am trying to create a contrasting image: architecture is very masculine, and I combine it with the female body,” Shieh says.
The 47-year-old artist created his first “architecture costume” a decade ago but since then, he has dabbled in other styles – such as his 2012 solo outing at the Osage Gallery in Kwun Tong – but kept returning to this theme. His continual reinterpretation of the Hong Kong skyline has become one of Shieh’s signature series.
