Archives Within the Archive
At 25: Artists’ Early Worlds - Holly Lee
1. Holly’s literary background and her circle of friends
2. Printmaking and her early works
3. Her years of photo-text projects
4. The beginnings of our studio practice
5. Contact prints as a record of an artist’s daily life
6. Photo albums as personal archives
In the exhibition cameraworks, holly & wingo (1981), I presented a series of photographs based on objects that carried personal significance. Among them were two images: a boxed set of woodblock carving knives and the large silkscreen squeegee Holly used for her printmaking. The reproductions on these pages were scanned directly from the original 5 × 7-inch transparencies. Among the carving knives, the one wrapped in fabric was handmade by us, with blade removed from a steel saw. It became the principal tool used to produce most of our woodblock prints.
Silkscreen printing formed part of the curriculum at the Institute, although Holly completed only a small number of works in the medium. The Child and Toys, created in 1974, was her final silkscreen print. It was exhibited in the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition in 1975, which I believe was the inaugural edition of what later became the continuing Biennial series organized by the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Today, The Child and Toys stands as an important record of Holly’s early artistic explorations, before the decades of concentrated work in photography that followed. At the next Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition, in 1977, Holly exhibited the woodblock print Someday You Wake Up in the Early Morning, one of the strongest works from her years devoted to woodblock printmaking.
The Child and Toys was made around the time Holly and I first met. I was not involved in printing that work, but all of her subsequent woodblock prints which were carved and printed in the small bedroom she subleased in an apartment in Quarry Bay. Holly moved there in April 1975, and I helped with the move together with several of her good friends. She remained in that apartment until the end of 1976, when we moved into the Lan Kwai Fong studio. All her woodblock prints was produced during those two years.
In 1975, both of us began studying woodblock printmaking under Leung Kui Ting. During this period we worked closely together, helping one another with printing, and many of the practical aspects of the process. The establishment of the Lan Kwai Fong studio also coincided with an important change in Holly’s career. After five years at the bank, she joined the Hong Kong Arts Centre, whose offices were then located on Yan Ping Road in Causeway Bay, before the completion of its present building. The new position brought unfamiliar responsibilities and demands, and gradually she found herself with neither the time nor the energy to continue concentrating on woodblock printmaking.
As I recall, woodblock practice initially grew out of the Institute as an extension of the courses, but it soon developed into an independent circle of friends who continued to study with Leung Kui Ting. We went on sketching trips and field excursions, and visited senior artists and collectors, including Chow Tai Wai, a collector of Chinese woodblocks, and Wong Pui Kong, who was then living in Cheung Chau. Most of us worked at home, occasionally gathering to share our progress, with our studio sometimes serving as a meeting place. After we moved into the Wyndham Street studio in 1978, the larger space naturally became the group’s regular gathering place.
In 1979, the nine members of this circle formally established the Graphic Art Association (版畫會), and presented our first exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in December of that year. The founding members were Joe So Ching Yuen, Li Suk Wai, Chan Ying Kit, Cheung Kai Yuen, Tang Chak Sang, Lee Ka-sing, Li Kam Fai, Holly Lee, and Tomaz Mok Hong Suen. Although Holly and Tomaz were members of the association, neither participated in the inaugural exhibition.
In November 1980, the Association organized its second exhibition, 6.25, in which each participant was invited to produce a series of works, each measuring no more than 6.25 square inches. Neither Holly nor I took part. I completed only a few prints and was unable to finish the full series as originally planned. The small frames I had ordered for the project were eventually used for the Polaroid Wall at the reception area of the studio entrance.
By the time we had settled into the Wyndham Street studio, our practice was expanding rapidly. Every day brought something new to learn. Holly was entering the first years of her life as a professional photographer, facing an unfamiliar field filled with both challenges and possibilities. Woodblock printmaking gradually receded into the background as photography became the centre of our shared practice.