The Practice of Time: Contemporary Art by James Chu

Taipa Village Cultural Association is pleased to present “The Practice of Time”, a contemporary art exhibition created by established artist James Chu. The exhibition presents a contemporary body of work by James Chu shaped by seven years of sustained practice, exploring writing, repetition, materiality and transformation. Bringing together calligraphy, sculpture, installation, mixed media, light and shadow, the exhibition considers how a continuous creative practice can transform a simple gesture into a physical and contemplative experience.

James Chu 

James was born in Macau. In 1990, he learned engravings at the Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos Printmaking Workshop of the Macau Visual Art Academy. In early 1998, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from the School of Arts of the Macao Polytechnic Institute. He went on to complete a Certificate in Cultural Policy and Media Quality at the University of Hong Kong in 2006, a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies at Lingnan University (Hong Kong) in 2008, and the Advanced Cultural Leadership Program at the University of Hong Kong in 2014.

He has held ten solo exhibitions featuring painting, photography, and installations in Macau and Beijing, and has participated in over a hundred group exhibitions worldwide. As a curator, he has organised more than a hundred Macau art and design exhibitions in major international cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Seoul, New York, London, Lisbon, Porto, and Melbourne.

In 2003, he was invited by the Ministry of Commerce of the Central Government and the Macau SAR  to design the logo for the “Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries.” His accolades include the Championship in the 2005 East Asian Games Emblem Design Competition (where his design was widely adopted), the Grand Gold Award at the 5th Macau Design Biennial, and his selection as a featured artist for the Macau Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. In total, he has received over 50 local and international awards in design and art.

His works are collected by the Macao Foundation, the Orient Foundation, the Macao Museum of Art, the Philippe Charriol Foundation, the Shanghai Zendai Himalayas Museum, the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, and by more than 30 private collectors worldwide.

Curator’s Statement 

The Practice of Time presents a contemporary body of work by James Chu shaped by seven years of sustained practice, exploring writing, repetition, materiality and transformation. Bringing together calligraphy, sculpture, installation, mixed media, light and shadow, the exhibition considers how a continuous creative practice can transform a simple gesture into a physical and contemplative experience.

At the centre is Chu’s seven-year practice of handwriting texts on a daily basis. Through repetition, writing becomes a record of time, discipline and concentration. The act becomes meditative—a rhythmic practice in which sustained attention creates a sense of stillness and presence. The central work, a three-dimensional paper sculpture constructed from seven years of handwritten pages, transforms a text of only 260 Chinese characters into an expansive physical structure, shifting language into matter and individual gestures into collective form.

Alongside this work, large-scale paper figures and hand forms produced through traditional intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship combine historical techniques with contemporary installation. Handwritten texts become visual and material elements, while integrated lighting reveals the relationship between writing, transparency, shadow and space.

Other works explore calligraphy and material history through paintings and reclaimed bricks carrying decades of weathering. Fragile paper, aged architectural materials, stone and light become different carriers of time, creating a dialogue between accumulated traces of the past and contemporary artistic intervention.

Across the exhibition, seven years of continuous practice provide a framework for exploring time as material, repetition as method, and meditation as attention. The works invite viewers to slow down and experience the subtle relationships between gesture, material and space.

The Practice of Time embraces a Zen-inspired spirit of simplicity, presence and perseverance. Rather than presenting historical forms of writing and making as fixed traditions, the exhibition approaches them as evolving visual languages through which memory, material, time and contemplation converge. Through this process, the everyday act of making becomes a quiet investigation into how time can be recorded, transformed and ultimately experienced through art.

João Ó

Organiser

Sponsor 

Cultural Development Fund

of the Macao SAR

Art Consultant