Kong Kai Ming's HK Sketch Note 1
But the following sketches that attracted my attention were not by architects.
I think I am too young to comment this master. But I really, really love his works.
In term of painting technique, there is no denying that Mr. Kong is perfect and professional. His skill is due to the 40-year learning and practicing process and his consolidating for more than 20 years. According to his autobiographic, he learned sketch with pen rather than pencil in his young age when drawing paper was hard to get, which made him draw every line as accurate as he can.
Mr.. Kong’s sketches are different from those drew by architects. Yes, you will find they are also accurate and skillful, and the technique was also achieved by paying unimaginative efforts. The technique helped showing the external beauty of architectures and scenes, but the inner beauty, the spirit of artist and the impact of feeling to us, the audience, is formed with painter’s own affection and soul.
Those Architects showed their affection of appreciation on the beauty of constructions and express their interest of structure analysis toward their targets. Mr. Kong is not an architect. He attached his love and passion on his HK sketches. He bear the scene of his homeland in mind and let them flowed out from his drawing hand. His sketch is quite similar with old photography. Photography can also catch the scene with all the details and call the old memories up. But I am more enjoy feeling that every single line and dot in a sketch was created by a lively hand that is led by his heart and emotion. I think that is why painting will not be replaced by photography.
I am not a local resident of HK, I do not really know the places and streets Mr. Kong have ever lived in. But I can still feel the yearning of this old HK artist. He is thinking of his past, thinking of some old scenes of HK that people will never see, some events and life style we will never have, some memories of some histories that should never be forgotten. He is thinking of the fate of his homeland with all he can do as an artist.
I think these sketches of old HK is a treasure, a gift to everyone in this land, no matter young or old. Maybe most of HK people are not interested in history and the development speed in HK make memory fade out quickly, look at these sketches drew by an old man born in 1930s, he recorded the scenes of HK with his life and pencils, his love, memory and passion with this land and his sketch works never fade in decades.