Henry Hu

The Golden Rain Tree drips its powders down

The Golden Rain Tree drips its powders down, an exhibition of new and recent work by Henry Hu. Bringing together animation, paintings and photographs, this focused presentation highlights the artist’s continued interest in abstraction as a force that might signify life without directly defining it. Engaged with notions of mysticism, central to his practice is an enquiry into the spiritual end. 

Prominently featured in this presentation is Light Jelly Sweet (begun in 2022), an ongoing series in which the artist furthers his exploration into the language and material process of abstract painting, investigating the physicality of the medium. What arises from Light Jelly Sweet, whether on canvas, board, or paper, are testaments of existence as imagined, invented, remembered, and observed. 

Limiting his range of tonal palette within each work, the paintings combine a multi-layered technique of paint pours with an ecosystem of raw, earthly materials—mixing sand, gravel, twig, leaf, grass and wood. Each element tunnels into, intertwines with the other, a delicate manipulation of material that traces the ambiguity of nostalgia. At heart, the works are an embodiment of the natural world, to preserve what is fleeting, a piece of reflection, a quiet wonder. 

Complementing the series Light Jelly Sweet are v15 and Mount. Etna (both 2019), a pair of digital prints that distills the loss of childhood splendour—ruminating on the time before adulthood, back when everything was brand new, glaring, often exciting. Presented in dialogue with one another, Hu created the paintings using architectural rendering programs, beginning with basic builds, then altering and rearranging them into vertiginous structures. 

Also on view are computer-generated animation. Conceived as an extension and companion to the static work, these motion images are a synesthetic field of shapes and rhythms, to suggest the ethereal or perhaps the transcendental—pixelated, fuzzy, blurred visuals that also make parallels with the digital world, advancing the artist’s constant search into new territories of abstraction. Seemingly dissimilar, the common thread linking the video imagery is an intimate study on the mechanism and limitations of memory, both personal and collective, interpreting the lost time, space and thought.

Henry Hu, The Golden Rain Tree drips its powders down, 2023, Gravel, apricot kernel, metal, grass, glitter, flour, spray paint, adhesive, and acrylic on board, 30 x 42 cm