Cover Andy Lau (fourth from the left) and his team of artists at Freespace, West Kowloon (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)

The Hong Kong actor and musician’s show at Freespace explores multiple facets of his career and personal life through an immersive experience

Andy Lau, one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong” Cantopop of the 1990s, added “artist” to his list of talents and opened his first art show, 1/X Andy Lau X Art Exhibition. Running from August 25 to September 9, 2023 at Freespace, West Kowloon, this exhibition showcases the multiple facets of Lau’s career, family and personal life.

The show is made up of eight zones, and includes a sculpture of his own design that features Zentangle patterns, which sits right at the entrance to symbolise the start of his own artistic journey. After that, visitors are drawn into an immersive space where a six-minute projection, full of images and footage from his concerts and movies, is screened.

“Visitors can get a sense of what it is like to sing in a concert like Lau,” says the MC of the media tour on the opening day.

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Above “Always” by Andy Lau (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)

On the upper floor of the exhibition is Honey, a zone dedicated to his family that is full of landscape and flower paintings by him and his daughter, Hanna Lau. The film star says he was inspired by the time he spent with his daughter taking up painting together during the pandemic, and then comparing the results. “We began to find more common topics. This has improved the way I communicate with her,” Lau said at the opening of his exihition.

The rest of the space features works for which Lau collaborated with other artists, including Xu Zhuoer, a Beijing-based installation and digital artist; Stickyline, a Hong Kong artist duo that specialises in large-scale paper sculptures; and Lin Yusi, a Chinese contemporary ink artist.

Lau also shared during the opening that he used to help his family run a tuck shop by writing menus when he was small, and it wasn’t until later on in life that he picked up Chinese calligraphy. However, it wasn’t until he started preparing for this show that he took the hobby more seriously by learning from and practising with the featured artists.

Commenting on how it feels to try a new artistic expression as an established music and movie icon, the 61-year-old says: “I’m new to the art scene, I’m open to receiving all praises and criticism. [And] this exhibition has expanded my life experiences.”

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