Leslie Cheung rated sculptor Ming Fay, but can he gain wider appreciation in Hong Kong?
Prolific sculptor Ming Fay, who discovered a love of the art growing up in Hong Kong, is currently being honoured in a US exhibition
As a child, Parker Fay lived in a kind of wonderland, surrounded by giant fruit, seeds, bones and replicas of other organic forms. For him, this was the norm.
“I almost thought of them as furniture,” Parker says about the creations of his father, the late Chinese-American sculptor Ming Fay. “I only began to understand the significance of their impact when I saw my friends’ reactions to the space.”
Known for his fantastical papier-mâché creations as well as prominent public art projects across America, Fay was adept at infusing ordinary objects with a fresh and larger-than-life sense of whimsy.
He died in February at the age of 82 in his adopted home, New York, as a highly regarded artist and professor.
With one of the best-known museums in the US currently hosting the largest retrospective of the artist, a long-time friend and collaborator hopes that Ming Fay will gain wider recognition in Hong Kong – the city where Fay grew up and had lifelong connections.
“In Hong Kong, Chinese ink artists such as Lui Shou-kwan are the most famous pioneers. But in his own way, Ming Fay was truly an avant-garde Hong Kong artist,” says Kwok Mang-ho, also known as the Frog King.