Acclaimed British artist Maggi Hambling talks about life and death as she prepares for first solo exhibition in Asia since 2019

New and recent series of works will be exhibited in The Night, an exhibition at Pearl Lam Galleries, coinciding with Art Basel Hong Kong

LONDON and HONG KONG, March 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Maggi Hambling occupies a unique position as an artist who has consistently embraced a spirit of rebelliousness throughout her career, making her one of the most celebrated women artists in the British art scene.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2366365/The_Pearl_Lam_Podcast_1.jpg

This spirit is evident in her tributes to seminal intellectual figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, an important advocate for women's rights, and memorial sculptures honouring figures like the 19th-century author Oscar Wilde and the 20th-century composer Benjamin Britten.

Speaking in The Pearl Lam Podcast ahead of the opening of her new solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Maggi Hambling talks openly about her career and about life and death, saying:

"I've always worked very hard and have been in my studio every day. But obviously as one gets a tiny bit older, it seems like less and less time. And so, one has to really go for it.  I think about death every day."

Click here to watch the exclusive new video with Maggi Hambling:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE0Ap2ijciA

Maggi Hambling's new solo exhibition 'Maggi Hambling: The Night' will open at Pearl Lam Galleries at Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, Central, Hong Kong from 26 March to 16 May. The exhibition marks the first solo exhibition by Maggi Hambling in Asia since the artist's museum retrospectives in Beijing and Guangzhou in 2019. Pearl Lam Galleries will also showcase an important new Wall of Water painting by the artist at Art Basel Hong Kong.

The Night will include two new series of paintings that have never been seen before. This includes Maggi Hambling's 2023 series with works titled Sexy, Sexy Dream, and About to Kiss, which explores the seduction and intimacy to which the silent night and shifting clouds can bear witness. It also includes Hambling's Night Sky and Night Clouds paintings from 2021 that present a universal subject connecting the East and West along with the North and South.

Influenced by Chinese and Japanese paintings, the works featured throughout The Night showcase a technique reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy, a connection rooted in Hambling's art student days when she would regularly study Chinese ink drawings on display at The British Museum.

Maggi Hambling says:

"I'm excited to return to Hong Kong and to be working with Pearl Lam. The subject of my exhibition, The Night, is one I have returned to throughout my career. Night inhabits a mysterious territory where beauty, fear, desire and dream combine and invite us in."

Pearl Lam, Founder of Pearl Lam Galleries, says:

"I'm delighted to present new and recent works by Maggi Hambling at Pearl Lam Galleries at Printing House in Hong Kong and also in our group presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong. Her contributions to the British art scene are truly exceptional, and she is someone whom I believe has carved a path for a new generation of artists with a brutally honest and direct approach. Her artworks continue to resonate with me on a deeply personal level."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Exhibition Dates:
26 March–16 May 2024

Location:
Pearl Lam Galleries, Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, Central, Hong Kong

Gallery Hours:
Monday–Saturday, 10am–7pm