An Art Stroll through the ‘Hood with FindArt App Founder, Ingrid Chen

Surrounding yourself with art can be a meditative and relaxing experience. We can now freely do this without feeling constantly monitored by museum security by simply downloading the FindArt App and following the routes synced with Google Maps to local art galleries near you.

App to Find Art

FindArt App is an app developed by ex-Sotheby’s Editorial and Translation Director Ingrid Chen and her team to make art galleries and their events accessible in an organized manner to art lovers and art novices alike. The App collects information about art galleries and art exhibitions in Hong Kong and a map plots all the nearby art galleries in your location so that you can hop into an art gallery whenever it takes your fancy during its opening hours.

Finding an Art Gallery Off the Beaten Path

Little known fact from Ingrid is that Hong Kong has more art galleries than London or Paris. Some art galleries may be housed in office buildings or nondescript repurposed factory buildings.  To test out the FindArt App, Ingrid took us along an art gallery tour in Central/ Sheung Wan. We first arrived at Ubu Deco Gallery, which is an art space where artists can rent to feature their art exhibitions. The Gallery is located on the upper floor of a nondescript office building near the Central wet market. On our visit, Ubu Deco featured 3D works on the female form of a Korean female artist, MooA Lee. Unlike in an art museum, the experience of visiting an art gallery such as Ubu Deco is one of peace and discovery without much words or explanation. You can take your time to stroll around, take and pose for photos and contemplate what messages the artist would like to convey. The artist, MooA Lee’s artwork was bright and cheerful which made a wonderful start to our art tour based on the FindArt app.

Ex-French PM’s Art Gallery in the Heart of HK

Next up was a visit to the Villepin art gallery near PMQ. This art gallery is a well regarded one started by the former French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin and his son Arthur. The main feature of Villepin is that art exhibitions held there are carefully selected and researched to bring out a common theme amongst the 3 floors of the gallery while featuring different contemporary artists. This is in keeping with the founder, Dominique de Villepin’s style when he was Prime Minister, where he spent time talking to different artists and learning about their works, seeking to use art as a medium to bridge the cultural divide.

Liquid Memory – Artists’ Viewpoint of Changing Memories

Villepin gallery showed a themed “Liquid Memory” exhibition during our visit. The ground floor was devoted to the paintings of Japanese skateboarder and artist Koji Yamaguchi who painted based on his view of Japan  without wearing his eyeglasses. I felt a special affinity with the paintings as those paintings presented how my world looks whenever I take off my glasses too. His views of a Japanese lake and forest are realistic as to how a moderately (or heavily) nearsighted person sees the world. It makes one ponder whether the world can be more beautiful when we look at it without the examination of perfect eyesight.

One is greeted with a lone person at the pool upon advancing to the next floor of the gallery – a painting by third culture painter Yuri Yuan, a Harbin native raised in Singapore and educated in the US. She transports the viewer to the nostalgic lonely life of a third culture kid–doing activities alone and not quite fitting in. It can be a strangely meditative and peaceful experience.

Treasure-hunting at Sotheby’s Auction House

Finally, we ended our FindArt App tour with a visit to the Sotheby’s auction house in Chater House. It is open to the public without all the registration requirements, security checks and heavy walking at auction exhibitions in the Convention and Exhibition Centre. There is just a minor requirement to carry backpacks in front of you to avoid bumping into the auction pieces. There is a wide variety of auction pieces on display, including dinosaur fossils, First Edition books of classics and artworks by Banksy, Yayoi Kasuma (of polka dotted works fame) and many more.

All in all, taking time out of your day to enjoy art and be immersed in the creativity of humankind through the ages is a worthwhile experience for young and old alike. Download FindArt app and be ready to have your weekends or in-between time waiting for friends filled with an artsy and fun time! For as Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton wisely put it, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”. Just that there’s no danger of getting lost with the Google map-linked art map on FindArt!