Art Against the Odds

Renowned Macau-based artist Mio Pang Fei has always taken bold steps throughout his life-long artistic journey, overcoming significant challenges and obstacles along the way, while at the same time pioneering the unique style of neo-orientalism.  His solo exhibitions have been shown in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Portugal and Belgium, and his works have become highly valued.   Last month, a new documentary about Mio’s life, by local film company Inner Harbour Films, was screened at the documentary film festival Doclisboa 2014 in Portugal. The film, directed by Pedro Cardeira, is a revealing and intimate look at the fascinating life of this highly respected artist. In this month’s Closer Look we speak to both the painter and the director.

 

 

Born in Shanghai in 1936, Mio Pang Fei moved to Macau in 1982.  Today he is almost eighty years old and sadly, not able to paint the way he used to. 

A few years ago, Mio became very sick and underwent three major surgeries in two months. Since then his physical condition has deteriorated and he is not as strong as he once was. 

 

“As you know, my works usually come in super large sizes and it takes me a great effort to create them. I can no longer paint due to a lack of physical strength,” he says. “There are still lots of painting tools and frames in my studio. I wish to pick up my brush one day again and paint, but it’s unlikely to happen.” 

 

Unable to paint on his typically large scales, three years ago Mio found a new outlet for his creative passion and started practicing Chinese calligraphy.  He discovered that it offered him a great sense of tranquillity, and didn’t require so much energy as he could do it from home, not having to travel long distances back and forth to his studio in Zhuhai.  Despite this new focus, some of his characteristic style is still clearly evident in his new work.

 

“As time has passed, my calligraphy painting and writing has become bigger and bigger. I just can’t help myself. Only the bigness can convey a strong visual impact,” he notes.   

 

As well as taking on new artistic projects, in the last three years Mio has also been the subject of a documentary by Macau-based Portuguese director Pedro Cardeira.  Mio is grateful for the director’s dedication and efforts, and is extremely pleased with the final result. 

 

While documenting Mio’s life, Cardeira followed him to Shanghai for an event to commemorate his respected teacher Liu Hai Su, a pioneer who opened the first academy of fine arts in China. 

 

“Liu was a legend. He would be 120 years old now if he were still alive. He earned a great reputation in the Chinese art world. I first met him during the Cultural Revolution when we were both targeted for   our political dissidence,” Mio recalls. 

 

During that time, Liu lost ownership of his mansion, Mio notes. Ten thousand books in his library that he had stored and collected his whole life were thrown away, and all his paintings, which were deemed to be disseminating politically sensitive messages, were removed and burned to ashes. According to Mio, it took hours to burn them all. Liu was 70 years old at the time.

 

“So my friends and I came to help him in secret. We collected all his books and put them somewhere else. We had often been guests at his house, sharing stories of the ups and downs in our lives,” he says.  

 

When Mio’s family first arrived in Macau in the early 1980s, he remembers that the local art landscape was not as vibrant as he expected it would be. The concept of abstract painting was introduced to Chinese art circles only after his first solo exhibition in Macau.

 

“At that time, only Portuguese art lovers knew its beauty and  appreciated my work. But the Chinese had no idea of what I was doing and they were very confused about my art form, so they considered my work rubbish,” he says. 

 

“People started talking about my work after the exhibition and it stirred up a lot of discussions, and more and more attention was drawn to what I defined as neo-orientalism in art,” Mio explains.

 

Mio’s decision to move to Macau connected him to many well-known European artists and opened a window for him into the Western art world. He had seen some of their work before when he was in China, but only in a very superficial and restricted way.

 

“The Chinese government at that time censored all knowledge that came from the West, as a way of securing their regime. I could do nothing at the time, but I went to the library to find some architecture books that might offer me a glimpse into what Western paintings looked like. The images didn’t show the paintings clearly, as they were just part of the interior decoration. I couldn’t see the details, but I took notes when I found any of them and put them into categories, so that I could identify their styles and the techniques they applied.”

 

Years after he immigrated to Macau, Mio had a chance to go to Europe, and was able to appreciate these artworks up close. He was so touched, tears came to his eyes. 

 

“Finally I was in front of them. I could compare them with what I had imagined in my mind to fill in the missing details of what I’d seen all those years before. I was speechless and the emotions that I had were beyond words. They were quite different from what I had imagined,” he says. 

 

As for the local Macau artist that he admires the most, Mio names Guilherme Ung Vai Meng, the president of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.  

 

“Guilherme is my favourite artist. His paintings are outstanding. He is also very smart,” Mio says.  

 

He recalls the time when they visited Portugal together. 

 

“He was very young then, about thirty years old. We went to many galleries and studied the paintings together.  Whenever he had any doubts, Guilherme came to me and asked and I’d explain. He took notes of what I said. He’s very diligent,” Mio remembers. 

 

 

 

 

Mio met his wife Un Chi Iam at an early age and married her when he was 30. For many, they are a perfect match – both have the same passion and interest in painting, as well as endless topics of conversation. The gallery that Mio opened in Shanghai was the place where he and his wife first met.  “We had a lot of ideas in common. We had great resonance with various subjects in art. The way we paint has influenced each other and our art has grown together,” Mio says.  According to Mio, his wife knows his artistic style very well and thus she decided to do something totally opposite. Mio has a very solid foundation in Chinese art but expresses it in a more Western style. Meanwhile his wife’s paintings convey oriental emotions but with a Western artistic influence in the background.  “As a husband, I do owe her a lot. I have been too devoted to my artistic pursuits and my wife has been the one who has taken care of all the household duties. Life at times has been very tough and she has sacrificed a lot for me,” he admits. 

 

 

 

 

Mio and his wife have made a great contribution to the Macau art scene and their achievements have also had a profound influence on their daughter, Christina.  Thanks to her parents, Christina has been exposed to many great works of art and artists since she was a child. She kept practicing calligraphy and painting even when living conditions were extremely tough when she was young.  “I was too busy to teach her, so she often met my students and learned by observing them,” Mio says.  After the family moved to Macau, Christina had a chance to study in Portugal, where she held her first solo exhibition. She had the talent and skills to paint but she later decided to change the focus of her studies to heritage restoration and conservation when she was in Italy. A decade ago she was also responsible for restoring the wall paintings of the temples and churches of Macau’s UNESCO Cultural World Heritage, for instance, the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Guia. In Mio’s exhibition at Galaxy Macau in 2012, Christina noted that some paintings had been stored for too long and some layers of colour had faded, so she helped her father to repair them.  “To be honest, I had to do so. There was no alternative,” she smiles.

 

 

 

 

When asked about his views on the prospects for the art market in Macau, Mio claims he doesn’t see any relationship between art and business at all. He insists that the creation of art is never the same as the production of commodity. “If your purpose for doing art is to earn a big sum of money, then I’m afraid that your work might not go anywhere. Art is not a business. My artistic journey has not been practical,” Mio says. “When I do art, how much it might be priced at is not my concern. Business people have their own views. That’s what they have to be bothered with.”  Since his arrival in Macau, Mio has created several hundred paintings, most of which have been sold. The most expensive one is now housed in the concert hall of the Macau Cultural Centre. It was bought for around MOP600,000 before Macau’s handover to China, and today its value has the potential to go even higher. “The designer appreciated my work and thought it suited the interior of the complex, so they purchased it,” says Mio.

 

 

 

With his new documentary about Mio Pang Fei’s life and work, Portuguese director Pedro Cardeira reopens the discussion on neo-orientalism. The film recently had its world premiere at the DOCLISBOA film festival in Europe