Why I’m Showing My Father’s Paintings
It has been a goal of mine for many years to host an exhibition of my dad’s artwork. I want his work to be seen, appreciated, and remembered.
For most people who walk into the gallery, these will be paintings. For me, they are also my childhood. I grew up watching my father paint for countless hours, often at [the kitchen table / a corner of the living room / his studio], working quietly while the rest of the house went on around him.
In the 1990s, our family ran a little differently from most. My mom worked in an office, and my dad stayed home to care for us. In the time he had left over, he painted, hoping his work could help with the household bills. A stay-at-home father was uncommon then. A stay-at-home father who was also an artist was rarer still. I didn’t realise as a child how unusual that was, or what it asked of both my parents. I do now.
Art was in his blood. His father, Yip Yan Chuen, was a pioneering cartoonist and painter in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. His mother, Poon Chiu Fung, was a muralist and art teacher whose mosaics once covered the side of a Hong Kong hotel. As a young man in the 1960s, my dad painted the streets of Hong Kong in watercolour: cinemas, tenement blocks, the fishing village at Tai O. Some of those paintings are now in the collection of the Art Museum at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, alongside his father’s. Three generations of my family have made art, and I want my own children to know that, and to grow up feeling it belongs to them too.
The paintings in this exhibition come from a different chapter of his life. They were shaped by the challenges he faced as a Chinese immigrant, starting over in a new country. They were also shaped by my mother. She was our family’s breadwinner, and her love and devotion to us runs through so much of what he painted. You’ll see it in the recurring image of a mother holding her child close. You’ll see it, I think, in his lovers surrounded by forests, sheltered by something larger than themselves. And you’ll see a different side of him in his animals: cheetahs and horses, full of power and movement. I’ve always read those as the strength he carried quietly, and perhaps the freedom he wished for.
Putting on this show is my way of doing something for him that he didn’t have the chance to do fully for himself. He painted for his family. Now I want his family to help the paintings find their audience.
I also hope the exhibition helps these works find new homes: people who will hang them, live with them, and value them for years to come. A painting that is loved and looked at every day is a painting that stays alive.
The exhibition runs
Exhibition date: 22 – 28 October 2026
Opening time: 11:00 – 19:30
Opening ceremony: 23 Oct 2026 18:30
Venue: Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery,
Ground floor, The Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong
I would be so grateful if you came to see it, and if you know someone who would love his work, please bring them along.
Thank you for helping me share my dad, and the family legacy he carried, with the world.
