SC Gallery is pleased to present “Sculpting in Wind”, the first solo exhibition of Ho Lok Chung, Dave in a decade. Ho’s artistic practice began with painting, later expanded to woodworking, and has focused on ceramics in recent years. Having spent over a year in Jingdezhen, Ho merges a decade of cross-medium vision and experience to his new body of work, centering on the theme of ‘wind-sculpted treescape’. “Sculpting in Wind” opens on June 27, and runs till August 1, 2026. 

Ho Lok Chung, Dave (b. 1990) is captivated by trees, particularly the mountain trees that are constantly exposed to massive wind forces. Despite being bent and bowed over, they adapt to grow vertically and remain rooted to the land. These windswept forms often appear in his works. The compositions are elongated, marked with fluid and distinct linework in a warm and muted colour palette, presenting to the viewers like paintings. Nonetheless, the coloration and texture are not created by brushwork; rather, they are formed by the physical process of claymaking. Rolling out clay slabs, Ho stretches and deforms the clay with pressure, allowing the image of the tree to appear simultaneously with the material procedure.

The exhibition features 14 works, mostly of which the artist produced in Jingdezhen. Historically known as China’s ‘Porcelain Capital,’ Jingdezhen is famous for its production of blue and white porcelain. Unlike local porcelain vessels decorated with traditional landscapes and bird-and-flower motifs, Ho amplifies his physical process of making ceramics to an unprecedented scale. Among the works of the exhibition, the largest one measures 2 metres across. As the clay surface expands, the artist’s freedom of bodily movement also extends; the twisting of the clay body becomes more expressive, lending the trees a monumental vigour.

Beyond his expansion on material and expression, Ho’s subject matter also broadened to natural landforms: including wind-eroded rocks weathered into shapes of tree-crown, and giant tree-like channels carved by repeated tidal currents on wetland. Ho portrays these geographical traces born of wind and water, setting them in dialogue with his depiction of trees. The veins of marbled clay resemble the gestural silhouette of the arboreal subjects, embodying in his work the inseparable and mutually nourishing relationship between earth and wood.

Ho’s artistic intention is material-driven. He believes that each medium carries their own way of thought and logic. As his engagement with material has grown more diverse, the multi-disciplinary perspective accumulates into his works. Converging the context of painting and sculpture into ceramics, Ho captures treescapes of nature, making the invisible tangible in matter, and continually shaping both his artistic identity and the boundaries of his practice.