Never End 明天會再來: The Art and Life of Gaylord Chan 陳餘生藝術展

Widely respected and beloved as one of Hong Kong’s most original painters, Gaylord Chan (1925-2020) had a dynamic career that traversed cultural epochs and the boundaries of media. He made his first serious foray into painting only at the age of 42 after enrolling in an extra-mural studies art course organised by the University of Hong Kong in 1968. Chan’s late start, however, did not at all limit his potential. While he worked as an engineer for Cable & Wireless by day, Chan continued to experiment and refine his creative practice. The artist eventually developed a unique abstract language of bold colours and rustic forms that reflects on the simple wonders of daily life, science and metaphysics, and the contemporary human condition. Referencing an evocative painting by Chan from the 1990s, Never End: The Art and Life of Gaylord Chan, presented by Asia Society Hong Kong Center, is a tribute to the late master and his invaluable artistic legacy. It explores the development of Chan’s art and pedagogy, presenting a curated selection of paintings and a rarely exhibited collection of digital artworks projected in cinematic format. Upon the fourth anniversary of his passing in 2020, this thematic retrospective enriches extant research on Chan with newly organized archival materials and celebrates the art and legacy of a resilient free-spirit in his first institutional monograph in over 40 years.

Gaylord Chan (1925-2020) was a prominent Hong Kong artist who only formally began his painting career in his 40s, developing a unique, youthful, and iconographic mode of abstract painting that he continued into digital art in his later years. Chan was also a beloved teacher, basing his pedagogy off his own experiences as a painter and shaping the next generation of Hong Kong artists. Never End includes a selection of paintings, rarely exhibited digital drawings, and newly organized archival materials that pay tribute to the artist’s art, life, and ongoing legacy.