The Nature of Colour

I first discovered Charles’s work on Instagram in 2021 – even digitally I was captivated by the colors, textures, abstract nature, and scale of his work. I decided to reach out to him via Instagram and luckily, he was interested to meet.

Subsequently, Charles and I met several times, where he took me through his work and his art journey. From here the special relationship between the curator and artist began. Charles was motivated to paint the varieties of colours to record time as a continuum. He was keen to explore the nature of colors. Coming from an art and design background these themes and artistic techniques really spoke to me. Charle’s art not only had the ability to aesthetically move me, conceptually I was stimulated as well.

I have been curating large and small scale art exhibitions for the past ten years in galleries and experimental spaces. I have always felt an unusual amount of inspiration when I am in the presence of great art. My goal is to bring this feeling to everyone who visits the exhibitions I curate. To feel moved from the beauty and stories behind the art and the artist. Thus, the birth of ‘Fafa Interlude: Last Night’ was formed, a major solo exhibition of Charles’s Fafa series presented for the first time in Vancouver.

I had been searching for a space to exhibit and elevate Charles work and finally the correct one came along. Thanks to Low Tide Properties, a property developer in Vancouver, we had this unique 4,000 sqft warehouse like space. I must say, not many artists would be able to master and adequately fill up such a vast space with artworks. In this case, not only did this not overwhelm Charles, but he had a full body of work ready. The space worked perfectly with Charles’s impressive body of works to bring his story and artworks to life, to allow viewers to take their time to go through each piece, to ponder and wonder, and feel inspired. A total of 37 paintings, mostly large size canvases, was presented.

The Exhibition

‘Fafa Interlude: Last Night’ displayed an interim review of artist Charles Chau’s latest body of work — in-between the artist’s debut show of the Fafa series, Why do I paint the flower pink?, exhibited in Hong Kong, 2020 and his upcoming exhibition, When do you last kiss the clouds?, which will be exhibited in Tokyo in 2023. Essentially the exhibition was Charles’s Chau’s Fafa 1, 2 and 3 series intermixed together.

The term 'Fa' translates to 'flowers' in Cantonese. The purity inherent to flowers is embodied in his work and the title emphasises this floral power. The repetitive syllables of ‘fa’ mimics an infant uttering the Cantonese pronunciation of ‘flowers’ – emphasising purity and joy.

In this exhibition, Charles continued to play around with his wide selection of colour palettes to elicit open-ended conversations — the inherent subject deviations and the contextual perspectives of individuals. Colours and their meanings are just so different for each individual viewer at various points of interest and time. The artist’s sensational paintings on large scale canvases transcend his viewers into immediate stimulus responses and elicit temporal consciousness of the viewers’ minds.

Going Through the Space

The exhibition was broken up into four different areas.

The exhibition aims to reflect on the art making of Charles over the years, to review and rearrange his works that will create new senses of enlightenment, and to add a new dimension as well as narrative to the artist’s original thematic.

The following is a verbal walk-through of the exhibits in the show that explain Charles’s story through his paintings:

A.   Relation of time and colours
Artworks: Smell of Seasons / ‘Spring Hexadic / Gaze

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted with paintings from each of the three Fafa series. In Smell of Seasons from his first series, Fafa 1, Charles expresses the four seasons based on the time of the year and colour. Themes about the joy and boundless happiness of childhood are present in these pieces. As Charles loves to say, ‘flowers bring joy whenever we find them’.

Beside Fafa 1 sits Spring Hexadic a triptych of Fafa 2 that zooms in on the possibility of colour changes within a season. Right across there is ‘Hues’, another pair of paintings of Charles Fafa 2 series — displaying what colours could change at different hours of the day. On the left is Hues at 10:00 am, and on the right, Hues at 4:00 pm. It is a remarkable observation of the artist’s sensation of seeing and presenting colours at different times of the day!

As one turns away and before heading back to the entrance of the space, there is Gaze, one of Charles largest paintings to date, part of Fafa 3 – which the artist is working on with the thematic of ‘Agents of Life’ in nature in mind.  Staring at this painting for a prolonged period one can simply feel its immense power, and an interesting depth of field. Fafa 3 is what the artist aims to bring to Tokyo too.

B.   Greys study of tones and shades in the context of colous
Artworks: Last Night / Rainbow’s Ink

As one continues to enter the centre of the exhibition space, one will see most of Charles’s latest work, Fafa 2, which at this unique phase, the artist ventures into exploring greys as well as the tones and shades of colors. Fafa 2 is also set to be exhibited in Tokyo. Not only is Charles painting the ‘colour’ of nature, but he is also expanding on the ‘nature’ of colour. In this series Charles raises questions such as what is the property called color? What if there is no light can we actually see colors? Or do we only see colors on the rippling surface of water?

As Charles says, “We know that not every night is the same, nor the form or colours of any event. That this is the moment, and that moment while you seize it, it is gone. Every night is, in a way, a Last Night.”

Charles’s piece Last Night — the artist asks if colour is real and exists. Charles once told me he paints on the edge of a ‘last night’, to capture that special moment before all colours diminish and vanish to merely become a memory. He believes every night in a way is a last night. The temporal consciousness of being and existence.  The only thing one might still get a hold of is perhaps some of the fragmented memories — the smell, the colour, or some loosened images — all those sensational recollections if any are subjective or dispositional, perceived differently by everyone.

In comparison, another piece Rainbow’s Ink — the artist explores if grey is an actual colour and why certain people gravitate towards this colour. This makes me wonder who would gravitate more specifically to this colour? Surely maybe to us Vancouverites would due to the daily visuals we get, with the grey skies?

Placing these pieces beside each other helps the viewer explore this black and white, or ‘grey’, element in relation to and in addition to just colourful colours — Questioning previous theories, opening up one’s mind, the exhibits are hereby arranged in a way to make viewers take a step back and contemplate colour for if only a moment.

C.    Artists philosophy

Artworks: After the Blue Moon / Heavenly

Entering further into the exhibition space, one sees the philosophies or spirit behind the artist in his art making. For Charles it is as such a simple daily practice, nothing to be glorified nor amplified.

Charles seeks to have the viewer start their own journey behind the meaning of the piece and finds excitement with the deviation in context for his pieces based on their culture, state of mind and context. I believe most visitors will all feel elated when looking at Charles’s works but isn’t it interesting that we as viewers all have different feelings behind one piece?   

In a piece titled After the Blue Moon, when most of us typically get excited by the astronomical wonder, the artist is more interested in the simple joy of every average night and day. Whether it is a night ‘after’ the blue moon or a full harvest moon when farmers will celebrate festively.

At the rear end of the exhibition hall, there stands a large scale quadriptych entitled, Heavenly, measured 68” by 264”, or 173 x 670 cm (combined), here the colours may look vibrant and bold to some, yet others may find them gentle and calming. One can certainly feel the movement of the artist’s brushwork when taking a closer look — fast and slow, and feel the weight and pressure of how Charles’s applies his paint.

Charles’s artworks leave room for all to feel a bit of wonder and joy.

D.   Exit

Artworks: Scale/ Usual / Plenitude

Finally at the rear of the exhibition one sees Scale, a typical playful piece of the artists colours relating to the practice of a musical instrument at different times of the year.

Usual is another piece where Charles’s takes a more meditative approach to his painting practice, again an echo of the artists philosophy.

As the visitors walk out of the exhibition space towards the exit, viewers are finally greeted by Charles work Plenitude.

Where I am again, so impressed by the artists display of his colour vocabularies to create that excitement and a direct experience for us, showing we are all connected in one way or another. I want to thank the artist and all there to help the exhibition get off the ground. I am honoured to be part of it and being the curator of the show.

We hope all of you enjoy this museum quality exhibition and meet the artist, Charles Chau, and be elevated by his world of colours. Enjoy!