Cultural art is extremely important to society because of the way it can convey its artist’s thoughts and feelings about their countries and cultures. Look no further than Fan Kuan’s famous Travelers Among Mountains and Streams painting, which vividly conveys the magic world of China in the Song dynasty, or the masterworks of Akira Kurosawa, whose engaging film depictions of the Japanese Sengoku period in such movies as Seven Samurai has earned him the title of one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.
And now, with expert use of the narrative style of wuxia, a genre of fantasy literature that concerns the adventures of martial artists upholding chivalrous ideals against oppressive powers during unstable times, Chinese artist Howie Tsui has created Retainers of Anarchy, a vivid solo art exhibit on now at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
“I’m a visual artist and I’m based in Vancouver,” begins Tsui, who describes his work as a mix of “high art and low art.”
Retainers of Anarchy consists of two works; the title piece is a 25-metre scroll-esque video installation.
“One work is a large-scale media work, also called ‘Retainers of Anarchy,’ and another work is a sound sculpture work called ‘Hei Gung Deviation,’ it’s a sculptural work, it looks like a wooden martial-arts dummy,” he says.
Tsui says that inspiration for his artwork comes from everything from scary stories to animation.
“I’m influenced by superstition, ghost stories, fear, these ideas of order versus chaos, and loops—I’m interested in loops and sampling,” he says. “I like this animation from the ’80s called Dr. Slump.”
Tsui says that these influences blended together to make Retainers of Anarchy.
“I’ve been working since the early 2000s, so it’s almost like 20 years of work,” he says. “I think it’s been slowly maturing. It just kind of happens organically and in a piecemeal kind of way—not everything is jammed together all at once. Everything slowly builds up and interlocks with one another.”
Like everyone else, Tsui has been dealing with working throughout a pandemic-ravaged year and a half. And, like a lot of artists, he used his work to help him get through it all.
“I would say I’ve been fortunate, because there’s still a lot of projects that I’ve been working on that haven’t been cancelled,” he says. “They’ve been affected, but they’re still kind of moving forward. So I’ve been busy working through those, and it gives me a feeling of normalcy, kind of just plugging away. The difficulty is that there’s no social interaction, which is usually a good place to spark creativity or have an idea that can move further through engaging socially with my friends and colleagues.”
Retainers of Anarchy
Saturday, June 12 to Sunday, October 24
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
aggv.ca