Photomontage by Wing Chan

Wing Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1962. Growing up in the shadows of the old Kowloon Walled City, and many of his formative experiences were embedded in that hard and difficult era. At the age of six, Wing began working at his parents’ noodle shop in a rough neighbourhood near Kai Tak Airport. At age twelve, Wing met photorealistic painter Michael Wong, and from the ages twelve to seventeen, Wing took drawing lessons at Wong’s studio three times a week after school to study and hone his artistic talents. However, feeling that his calling was to move abroad to pursue his artistic development, at eighteen, Wing left Hong Kong for the United States.

In 1985, Wing graduated from the world-renowned ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California and began his award-winning career in commercial design. This led to the creation his own graphic and branding firm in New York City whose clients included American Express Private Bank, and Standard Chartered Private Bank. At the same time, Wing also served as an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. His graphic design works have appeared in numerous publications worldwide.

In 2011, Wing returned to Hong Kong seeking to rediscover his roots. Finding inspiration in the city’s diversity, he continues to showcase his mastery of forms, shapes, colours and textures through photography and the creation of photomontages. Since then, Wing has held exhibitions of his photomontages in Paris, Ginza, Kyoto, Kobe, New York, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.

In Wing's “Urban-Tapestry” photomontage series, he has created a pictorial meditation on the mundane aspects of city life. Shopping malls, escalators, buses, subway platforms and commuting passengers on the metro who are ridding themselves of the humdrum. Casting these everyday situations in a fresh new light. This collection reminds the viewer that, in the midst of the bustling, monotonous rhythm of such places, they are just threads in the fabric of urban society and they are what makes a city a living, breathing entity. What is accepted as normal is elevated to something special with its own identity.

In “Urban-Graphis,” Wing created a form of optical poetry, where a single subject of interest (found in an urban area) is interwoven with itself multiple times or positioned in such a way to become something completely different from the single original image. Reflecting the nature of modern cities, these electrifying and bold pieces urge the viewer to rethink their indifference about these overlooked features of urban society and to find beauty and unpredictability in surroundings that are otherwise stationary and formulaic. No matter it be Hong Kong, Paris, Seoul or any other city, you can immerse yourself in the mood of his visual music.