A Conversation between Hugh Moss and Katharine Tsang
HUGH MOSS: I would like to start the conversation by asking how the ink workshop last year impacted your practice? I noticed a shift towards traditional Chinese culture?
KATHARINE TSANG: When I signed up for the ink workshop, I didn’t know what to expect. I rejected a lot of the Chinese traditional painting deeming it boring and pretentious. I think it also came from a place of prejudice that Western mediums such as oil and pastel hold a more prominent position — prejudice against prejudice. I remember when I first visited your Hong Kong studio in 2019, I was taken aback by the sheer amount of Chinese art and antiques in the studio. I didn’t think too much of it, however, the space left a strong impression on me.
Now, I am approaching the making aspect with a hint of caution because I am Chinese, I worry my endeavours would be misunderstood as a Chinese person living abroad making Chinese paintings, and I do not share the same agenda as the new ink movement in the 1980s. Rather, I am understanding the medium and how it would help me to organise my thoughts.
MOSS: Are you making a point about transculturalism in contemporary art?
TSANG: I don’t want to be classified as Western or Eastern, my education and training might be mostly Western, however, the categorisation doesn’t reflect the personal lived experiences and the artistic journeys that one embarks on.
What I’ve gained in this bicultural experience is that people are constantly in transit. You need to discover the many parts of yourself and based on your personal experience, you will become invested in a theme of life or a social phenomenon as we go through life. The exploration reaches beyond curiosity, that is, a hardship, you must confront it and you cannot evade challenges. But after you have dealt with one, you have a new one to face and unpack. We are multiple and there is no end to discovering new ideas, feelings and epiphanies.
MOSS: So you split your time between London and Hong Kong, is the transcultural narrative important to you?
TSANG: I have always been attracted to the idea of living abroad. My mom worked as a part-time tour guide in her twenties so she could afford to travel over the holidays. As a family, we traveled a lot, my parents instilled in me a deep curiosity for different ways of life and a love of travelling. My dad would make a point that we visit mountains and it was important that we see the world. I guess the vastness/grandeur of nature draws parallels to the breath of the universe (qi).
MOSS: When we previously spoke, you mentioned the ways that handscroll informs an audience and is a powerful format. But I sensed that you were hesitant about delving deeper into using ink?
TSANG: Ink is a very unforgiving medium. Using ink and Chinese brush challenges me a great deal and shook my confidence a little.
After a rather unfortunate incident in the studio last summer, I have taken an oil hiatus as suggested by you to give ink/water-based medium a shot. Artistically, I feel close to oil and have avoided working on paper. The break has proven to be meaningful and I mean to revisit oil soon.
Xuan paper is a fascinating material, and it is very versatile. While I am caught in the awe-inspiring landscapes in traditional Chinese paintings, I’ve been avoidant of the medium mostly because, more than anything, it is a philosophical pursuit and is reflective of personality traits, mind and cultivation — the ultimate pursuit. Although I am aware any creative expression is bound to unveil new information, I’m very coy about my rediscovery. It wasn’t until now, you, a British artist, who redirected me to looking at Chinese ink paintings, although we know ethnicity doesn’t matter.
Instead of using Chinese ink only, l tend to use pencil to draw. I know I should really start using the brush, that is the only way to really learn brush work.
MOSS: I think ‘unforgiving medium’ is only one side of the coin, the other is that it offers extraordinary potential, and a lot of things that seem unforgiving offer this opportunity. It is a very sophisticated medium developed over a couple of millennia or more. To me the need to come to terms with the sophistication and use it as intended is part of the process of self-refinement that is crucial to Chinese brushwork. But given your interest in but as yet unembraced shift to ink and paper, can you describe the shift from your work in 2021-2023 to the current works?
TSANG: At the time, I was obsessed with old masters paintings, such as Titian, Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna. I had just moved back and was desperate to find some sense of artistic camaraderie. Just so happened my studio mate at the time has a wealth of knowledge on works that came out between the 13th and 18th Century, who also introduced me to works in the Bellinger collection — a private collection that primarily focuses on works on paper under the theme artists at work. Looking back, perhaps that paved way to me returning to drawing later on. I enjoyed the meticulous details in the old master works and the flow of oil paint. Truth be told, I was growing tired of the craze around contemporary painting, I much prefer just to be left alone and paint.
When I was working in East London, I found myself hitting the bottleneck and looking east again. However, that is not to say one is better than the other. It was all very well to be steeped in Western art history but the staleness was frustrating. With all the schools of thought that people use as models or dependencies for their own creations, we at best become the successors of a particular style or ideology.
MOSS: The Swiss alps and Swiss cottages are featured continuously in your paintings, what is this ongoing musing about Switzerland?
TSANG: My first art teachers were a couple and the wife loved the Swiss brand Caran d’Ache. She secured a dealership with the brand so naturally most of my supplies in the very early days were Swiss made. In my mind, Swiss products are of exceptional quality.
As I mentioned, my mom worked as a part-time tour guide in her twenties. Back in those days, you could get past airport security with very loose screening procedures. I guess she passed down the travel bug to me. Switzerland is one of her favourite countries and I live in London not far from a part of town called Swiss Cottage. Indeed, I have a fondness for Swiss products and the Swiss Alps. More than I’d like to admit, my parents’ tales are present in my work in one way or another. Right now, I am working on a painting that depicts a night cruising in the alps, if that’s even possible.
MOSS: I remember you traveled to Shanghai last November. Is travelling an important aspect of your art?
TSANG: Yes, consequential to the ink workshop, I traveled to China last year for the first time. My entire training was Western art history, with the exception of field trips to museums and seeing Chinese paintings in passing. The most memorable ‘masterpiece’ was the Jadeite Cabbage in National Palace Museum in Taipei, a revered artefact. I live in London, and there’s surprisingly few places to look at Chinese paintings, unlike New York City. I could only look at translated books and catalogues. In turn, old-school learning made me look harder and hungry for more.
I also visited Suzhou and particularly enjoyed the Lion Grove Garden and the Humble Administrator’s Garden.
I look forward to returning to Jiangnan province, hopefully before the year ends.
MOSS: I notice in your works a lot of references to what I presume are gardens. Is this based on the Chinese cultural attachment to them – they are a theme in many Chinese paintings of the literati life.
TSANG: In the very beginning, when I was a kid, painting gardens or beautiful natural attractions was a way to learn about places in the world. Hong Kong’s limited urban greenspaces mean that quiet places are hard to find. Gradually, my interest grew beyond the beauty of the garden and gardens became a source for pictorial sanctuary as one bears life’s trials and tribulations. Not to mention, retreat and hermitage are also key themes in Chinese literati painting. Since there’s only so many trips I can take before I am reported missing, gardens in my paintings are often based off the same sites.
In Moss Time, it was based off Saiho-ji in Kyoto. To secure a visit, you must write a letter to the temple, including three available dates and a return envelope. I must confess I was keen to visit because I read that there is a heart-shaped pond in the garden within the grounds of a Zen temple. Despite my naive motives, Saiho-ji remains one of my favourites.
MOSS: Regarding the conflation of the process of creating, the resulting art object, and what happens to it thereafter, how do you deal with the separate aspects of creativity of medium, message and marketplace?
TSANG: The art of painting and the career of painting are two different things. The distinction is important. Anybody can be an artist, albeit with a difference in skills, and the pursuit of digging deeper into inner self is a worthwhile pursuit in any time in our lives. Getting through the business side of things versus the fulfilment and joy you get from making do not always overlap. There isn’t in real life a purity, you need to handle the real world and find the purity at the same time. Make the chaos around you disappear when you are committing in the moment.
About Katharine Tsang
Working across painting and drawing, Katharine Tsang’s work is deeply subjective. Her compositions - often ethereal and delicate - are spurred by notions of change and the felt sensuality of the world. She collects disparate references and imagery from lived environments as well as materials that are significant to her personal and local history. Transmuting the eclectic images and her own imagination into paintings, a sense of quest is latent in her work.
Tsang lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
About Hugh Moss
Hugh Moss is one of the world's leading experts in the fields of Chinese snuff bottles and scholarly works of art, and is a well-known painter and calligrapher, working under his studio name, the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat. He draws from traditional Chinese techniques to create striking contemporary paintings of scholars’ objects and landscapes.
Moss lives and works between Hong Kong and Sussex, United Kingdom.