Event: Francis Yu Wai-luen: Language is Form

Date: 17 September - 3 October, 2003

Grotto Fine Art takes pleasure in presenting "Francis YU Wai-luen: Language is Form", an exhibition of one of the leading oil painters in Hong Kong. Featuring all news works done in the past two years, this exhibition showcases the artist's experiment in using figure/the human body and its connotative and symbolic meanings to address current social and political issues. The exhibition will be on view from September 17 through October 3, 2003.

Francis Yu's new works combine images and characters of western and Chinese origins. The central figure is done in a western academic style and which are juxtaposed with Chinese characters. Many of the works contain the human body with their titles related to the body part. The important part is the interplay between the two that provokes contradictory and unusual interpretations. In addition they serve as references to the artist's root and also as counterpart to the brilliant oil color pigments which suggests western academic sensibility.

Francis Yu Wai-luen was born in Hong Kong in 1968. He received initial art training at York University in Toronto, then the University of Guelph, before enrolling into the prestigious Royal College of Art in London. Yu is a lecturer at the Arts School of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. He has received numerous scholarships and his works are collected locally and around the world.