Reality lingers on the edge——both distant and near, standing as a quiet record of the past, a tender echo of days long gone.
At the dawn of 2023, Koon Wai Bong journeyed alone to Taiwan——leaving behind a land etched in memory and arriving in a place both unfamiliar and strangely known. To call it his second home felt like holding onto a rêverie——vivid yet elusive, real yet fleeting. To him, life began to unfold between two realms, and he drifted quietly between past and present. The past, once so immediate, now fades, as if each memory were gently being erased, stroke by stroke. And the present——this daily life he is learning to inhabit——feels like a rêverie recalled in passing, yet resisting solidity.
“Rêverie: Koon Wai Bong Beneath a Solitary Canopy,” will be taking place at Asia Art Center from August 23 to October 5, 2025, marking Koon’s second solo exhibition at Asia Art Center (Taipei) since 2017. The landscapes, forestscapes, individual words or phrases, each work in the exhibition records the intangible sense of presence he has experienced since 2022. Calligraphy serves as his autobiography of life in Taiwan; the bamboo paintings represent Koon's indelible past, while deliberately erased traces reflect his inner denial of that same past. The landscapes based on Taiwan's actual scenes mark his understanding and recognition of his new environment; however, the blurred images express Koon's rêverie-like, ambiguous feelings——affirming the present while harbouring uncertainty about reality.