As viewers go to the second floor of the pavilion, they will see paintings from various stages of Fung’s artistic oeuvre, including his early phase when he did sketches of houses in 1978 with technical pens, which are commonly used by engineers, comic book artists and cartographers. Also exhibited are paintings of cats, flowers and shanshui ( which means mountains and rivers in Chinese) from the 1980s when Fung used to mimic landscape paintings and abstract works by established ink artists such as Zhang Daqian. “These are common ink art subjects. I don’t do these traditional techniques anymore, but Chinese artists always treasure that kind of training”, he says. “You can say [learning from a master] is being a copycat, but you can only do it for a short time. Ultimately, you have to come up with your own style and direction.”

Later, when Fung pursued architecture as a career, those elements started seeping into his art too. Starting from the late 1980s, his work grew minimalistic. For example, the landscape in The Great Leap (1986) resembles a snowy night in Iceland instead of China’s mountain ranges. The frame of his ink art also became long, narrow and linear, which is unusual in traditional ink art. “The painting is the window”, he explains. He was inspired by the concept of fenestration. “An architect’s painting doesn’t have to feature buildings. It’s about the dimension and combination of the paintings.”

From 2019 to 2021, Fung even moved on to exploring subjects such as urban pollution and global warming in his Breathing and Life series. “In Asia, we have so much air pollution that even breathing can be considered a hazard”, he says. “These are the ideas I have brought forth in my paintings to address how we have destroyed our own place.” The artist has experimented with spray paint, ink, acrylic and watercolour on Japanese ink art paper to create a shimmering effect with dark lines left behind from evaporation that resemble the branches of a lung.

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Ink art and architecture remain interrelated in Fung’s art to this day. His site-specific installation at the end of the exhibition space contains two groups of clay tiles on the floor, separated by a glass wall. “This is Ping Pong [2023]. This is my most favourite concept because it symbolises a state of bouncing between two domains; in my case, it’s between art and architecture,” he says. He adds that the tiles were from the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, which had to replace its roof a few years ago due to leakage. “The tiles represented me as an architect, and I thought I could make good use of them as an artist.”

Fung says that this is not just another exhibition to showcase his art. “Hong Kong always positions itself as the meeting point between the east and the west. But when it comes to ink art, Chinese artists seldom have cultural exchange”, he says. “I was born here; it’s important for me as a local artist to do something for the Hong Kong society”, he says. After Hong Kong, Fung will have another retrospective exhibition at the Guangdong Museum of art on May 27, when he turns 71, and a launch of his book on architecture in London.

“Every Chinese person wants 70 to be something of a turning point. After that, you proceed to be an old man.” Fung has definitely set a high bar for his milestone.

Until February 27, 2023. Arts Pavilion, West Kowloon Cultural District

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