HONG KONG.- Flowers Gallery Hong Kong is presenting Polyphony, a solo exhibition by Wu Sibo. Marking his second presentation with the gallery, Wu continues to explore themes of place and belonging, focusing on his hometown, near Maoming, Guangdong Province. From an estranged lens, he reveals the multiple voices, conflicting perspectives, and layered stories present within his subjects.

Like an episodic novel, Wu constructs a narrative of Maoming through a series of scenes from daily life unfolding in the rural landscape. Rendered in a chiaroscuro palette and often punctuated by a single, low light source, the mundane is made unsettling. Wu’s handling of material employs two opposing techniques, with thinly veiled, delicate layers of paint juxtaposed against impasto passages across the canvas, creating a visceral representation of the artist’s internal dialogue.

Through this process of defamiliarisation, Wu elicits a disquieting new perception of the countryside, mirroring the sense of estrangement he experienced after returning home from Guangzhou, the provincial capital where he now lives. As Wu notes, “the clues are interwoven and layered, attempting to tell the loneliness and alienation that can be seen within the scope of my gaze, as well as the unease in the dim twilight.” With traces of the past echoing in the present, this hauntological examination reflects a small- town experience shared across much of the world: the loss of local character through sudden modernisation, the exodus of younger generations to cities, and the homogenising pressures of standardised language and globalisation.

In Honey (2022), two beekeepers transport their hives to where the lychee and longan trees are blossoming; in Fishing (2015), a man sits, awaiting a catch. From the subjects' perspectives, shaped by the cyclical rhythms of rural life, these vignettes might feel tranquil and grounded. But by removing natural light, Wu introduces an urban, linear sense of time, one that casts the figures’ stillness as idleness rather than rest.

Other scenes are derived from current events that evoke a strong emotional response from the artist. In Last Stop (2021), rows of anonymous figures – undocumented migrants – are escorted across a desolate airstrip. Having been transported from place to place and repeatedly denied entry, they arrive, finally, in a place where they must “belong.”

Installed along a single wall in the gallery space, the paintings engage in conversation with one another, forming an open-ended dialogue on what it means to belong in a rapidly changing world.

Wu Sibo (b. 1976, Maoming, China) lives and works in Guangzhou, where he graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. His chiaroscuro paintings depict rural life in southern China, his place of birth, through a lens of eerie stillness. His concentrated application of artificial light sources onto his subject conveys a sense of surveillance and alienation.

Quaint landscapes are made uncanny, reflecting feelings of defamiliarisation in rural areas as they experience rapid change. Mood in his work is often implied through the absence of facial expressions and composition of figures with their backs turned (Rückenfiguren). Wu's presence looms in the work: "I am not the spectator," Wu says, "I am one of 'them.'"

His work has been exhibited at Times Art Center (Berlin, 2020), and is held in private collections globally, including The Burger Collection, Hong Kong/Switzerland.