Collectors all over the world pay thousands, sometimes millions, for abstract art. You could be forgiven for thinking any of these images were painted with precision by an expert hand, conceived, worked and reworked to look just the way they do. In actuality, however, they are almost organic creations – the oft-ignored weather and time battered walls of Hong Kong.
“Off the Wall” is the latest collection of photographs from British-born, long-term Hong Kong resident Norman de Brackinghe. Having worked as a lithographer, a designer for Penguin books and travelled artistically through multiple mediums and genres, the 80-year-old is marking the 10th anniversary of his first solo abstract photography exhibition at Central’s Picture This Gallery this month.
Causeway Bay
Among the maze of Hong Kong streets, and in cities across the world, de Brackinghe has found inspiration in what others may describe as urban decay.
“The original stimulus was how much the natural effect of the weather on the environment reminded me of abstract painting,” says de Brackinghe, who dabbled in abstract art himself following a slow graduation from what he describes as a “tight Victorian style” of watercolour.
Wan Chai
Writing in an essay about his work with walls, he explains, “I am drawn to flat areas of colour, which do not vary in shade but change because of their surface texture, a frequent occurrence on decrepit walls. Background too transforms my response to the colour as do translucent flat areas that peel back to expose another surface of colour beneath, adding a further tension and sense of mystery.”
As you might expect from a man still experimenting with style in his eighth decade and with no plans of stopping any time soon, de Brackinghe was exposed to art at a very early age. Both his grandfather and father were photoengravers, a pinhole camera was always set up and ready to use in the family home, and his mother “protected the creative freedom of her children”.
Tai O
Having been taking photographs and painting from almost as soon as he could hold himself upright, de Brackinghe was forced into focussing on the former when National Service shipped him off to Singapore towards the end of the Korean War. With little time to draw and paint, he made local people his muses and threw himself into black and white photography, a medium he is still experimenting with to this day.
His flirtation with abstract photography only unfolded many years later with the advent of digital cameras and the “freedom from the darkroom” that accompanied it. Now his work is simply guided by his eye, which he trusts completely, and the memories of which he endeavours to reproduce honestly.
Pokfulam
“My eyes seldom actively search, but delightful visual discoveries appear at random as I wander the streets,” he says. “Today, when I press the shutter, it is complete. I rarely meddle with the image.”
Not only does de Brackinghe adhere to an arguably old-school method that involves no interference from Photoshop, he even often limits himself to a standard or prime lens as opposed to a zoom, finding the restriction “makes the moment of releasing the shutter all the more critical”.
Tai O
Commenting on how he feels the wheel of his artistic endeavours have come full circle since his time as a lithographer to now exhibiting a Picture This Gallery – known for its penchant for art nouveau and deco travel posters – this man of many talents insists on retaining a little bit of abstraction in himself.
“There are still people who argue that photography is not art, but there is no question in my mind, it is. I feel I am more artist than photographer and I am very happy that the lines are blurred.”
Central
“Off the Wall” is exhibiting at Picture This Gallery (1308, 13/F, 9 Queen’s Road, Central) until Dec. 24. A book produced by the gallery and the artist is also available for purchase.
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