“What has been concealed is ‘person’ or ‘people’, since wishes, resolutions and desires of single ‘person’ are not regarded in our society. I show the absence of ‘person’, ‘people’ on purpose in my work,”

Lu Hao, in an interview with ArtReview.

I am no art aficionado, and I have to admit I am biased whenever I look at a painting or other art forms. I only like those that speak to me, a sculpture that leaps out at me, a painting that I feel I can connect to, and a design rational that I understand. I know how the Mona Lisa looks like but it has never evoked any form of the above emotions in me.

Chinese artist, Lu Hao’s painting and installations, Cities Here & Now, well, is something else altogether.

If a venue, other than a woman, could be dressed to kill, that was simply how the Art Museum looked like on the exhibition opening on Friday night. The courtyard was decked out in Chinese lanterns strung up high in their yellow-crimson glow and people turned up in their own interpretation of the dress code of Beijing Rockz- a Mandarin collar shirt and pants, and embroidered cheongsam top and jeans.

ah5ive at work

But of course, the aesthetics of the opening were merely a backdrop to the real thing; the paintings and installations of Cities Here and Now.

Channeling the modernity and urbanization of Chinese cities into realistic paintings, the collection includes life-sized paintings of objects preponderant to current society- Coca Cola and Bacardi range of beverages, trendy canvas shoes in every colour and design, plastic stools for sale, international online news articles in a dichotomy of negative and positive reports.

Curiously what leapt out at me in these paintings was what that was not present. The element of what creates development; the people who create it. But then again, it wouldn’t have been Lu Hao’s signature then.