For most landscape painters, sight – being able to see the view – is the most important of the five senses. That is not, however, the case for Brussels-based artist Angel Vergara, who creates his landscapes and cityscapes while completely covered with a white sheet.
“What constitutes an image? It’s important to me that an image is not only something you see,” he says. “When I am in the process of making an image, I use, more than the view, all the other senses that we forget all the time – these senses that constitute our body and our being.”
The artist recently spent a month in Hong Kong as his alter ego “Straatman” (“man of the street” in Dutch), which saw him set up his makeshift, nomadic studio at various locations.
At times the artist immersed himself in nature – in places such as the Tai Tam Reservoir, Mount Davis and Lamma Island – and at other times, he placed himself in the middle of the city’s hustle and bustle, in locations like the entrance to Sheung Wan MTR station and the Mong Kok Flower Market.
Throughout it all, Vergara was covered in a white sheet, adopting a mysterious ghost-like presence while completing a series of oil paintings that are now on view in his “Acts & Paintings” exhibition at Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang.
Because he cannot see much through the sheet, Vergara depends on his other senses to depict his environment. For his canvases of nature, he prepped each one with a spectre of light starting on the left side, before overlaying colours and clouds with chalk based on what he heard or felt.
“It’s kind of an active meditation about what is around me,” he says, adding that the wind, sounds of birds, and even the humidity contributed to his works. For these, he usually spent several hours in one location, and was generally undisturbed.
For pieces painted on the busy streets of Hong Kong, the public played a much more significant role, and the resulting works are busier and more sketch-like, packed with words, lines, symbols and even red Chinese characters chosen to reflect the location.
Central Acte 4 (2023), for one, features words such as “luxury”, “lunch”, “Jaguar” and “Sunday” written in charcoal.
These city works were usually completed in half an hour, with final details added in his studio.
“The density and the actions are for sure more condensed, more charged, more violent,” Vergara says of the energy in the city.
Some people stopped to chat with him while others ignored and even stepped on his canvas. In one instance, when the artist was in Wan Chai, a passer-by called the police to report him. (After explaining to the officers what he was doing he was asked to leave the location.)
In addition to the outside works, there are two canvases that were completed inside the Axel Vervoordt Gallery: Acts & Paintings, Variation I, John Cage (2023) and Acts & Paintings, Variation II, John Cage (2023).
These were coated in charcoal before Vergara used his hands to take off the marks based on what he could observe in the gallery.
Ultimately, the artist hopes to illuminate the oft-ignored facets of our environments.
“I pay a lot of attention to these little existences,” he says. “I try to catch all these moments.”
“Acts & Paintings”, Tue-Sat, 11am-7pm. Until March 16, 2024. Axel Vervoordt Gallery, 21/F, Coda Designer Centre, 62 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang.