Exhibition on Microcosmic Conceptual Art of Living Systems (生命微觀意象藝術畫展)

 

In April the Library will stage an exhibition on paintings by Professor Kuang Diaoyuan (匡調元教授), a medical scientist who has been endeavoring to bring science and art together in a new art form.  The exhibition will be held in the G/F Ping Yuan and Kinmay W Tang Gallery from 26 April to 5 July.

 

Born in Jiangsu in 1931, Professor Kuang received his Bachelor Degree of Medicine from Shanghai No 1 Medical College in 1956.  Since 1960, he has been devoting himself to researching clinical pathology by integrating traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine.  At the age of 76, Professor Kuang became an apprentice of Mr Zhu Pu (朱樸), a painting master at Chinese Painting Institute of Shanghai.  Since then, Professor Kuang has been portraying, in a traditional Chinese painting fashion, the morphology of all sorts of cells and tissues in a human body that he has observed under the microscope over the last fifty years.  And he calls this unique combination: Microcosmic Conceptual Art of Living Systems.

 

He considers his style of portrayals to be neither Western abstract expressionism nor traditional Chinese landscape painting.  Instead, a more clinical perspective has been employed in his paintings to evoke metaphorical connections between physiological structures and celestial bodies.  He believes the doctrine "Isomorphism of man and nature" ("天人同構") can substantially broaden people's horizons.

Mr Chen Xie Jun (陳燮君), Curator of Shanghai Museum, praised his works as "a groundbreaking genre of painting!"

 

This spring semester we saw a new display of student works in the Library.  These are models made by students after completing the IELM 2145 Design Studio, which is a course taught by Professor Ravi Goonetilleke and Professor Uwe Reishl of the Department of Industrial Engineering & Logistics Management.  The course required students to translate their creative ideas into real models using various materials and assembly methods.

 

The models, including "Lampshades", "Wheels", "Gliders" and "Space/Submersible Module", are now installed on various floors of the Library.   In addition to their physical display, they are also featured on the Library Website at http://lbcone.ust.hk/exhibit/exhibition/39 for you to see and give feedback.  If you have not had a chance to see them, do come to the Library to appreciate the creativity and model building skills of our students.

 

A new exhibition about Professor Paul T K Lin will be staged in the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce Ko Pui Shuen Gallery in mid April.  Professor Lin was a prominent scholar and also a remarkable activist who dedicated his life to the rise of an independent, prosperous, and democratic China.  Growing up as a Canadian born Chinese, he attended universities in Canada and the United States before moving to the newly established People's Republic of China in 1950, and staying there for the next fifteen years.  In 1964, he returned to Canada to share his experiences of New China and to advocate for rapprochement between China and the West.  He left behind many boxes of documents when he passed away in 2004.  These valuable materials have now become part of the HKUST Library's Special Collections.  This exhibition presents some of the key papers, correspondence and books donated by Mrs Lin, which illuminate Professor Lin's exceptional life between East and West.