The hallway of Johnson Hall converted into a gallery for Poetic Imaging of the Minnesota Landscapes
Poetic Imaging of Minnesota Landscapes, an exhibit featuring selections by local artist Paul K Y Kwok is now on display by the College of Liberal Arts at Johnson Hall on the campus of The University of Minnesota.
Ka Yin Kwok was born in 1944 in China and raised in Hong Kong after 1949. The oldest child of a family with eleven children. He received his Bachelor of Social Science degree, majoring in Geography, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and served as a teaching assistant there until 1970. That same year he came to the University of Minnesota for graduate study and finished his Master’s degree in Geography. A year later in 1973 he entered the University of Minnesota’s School of Architecture and specialized in landscape design, where he learned sketching and other basic rendering techniques. At the same time, he ran a Chinese restaurant with his business partners. However, he left school eventually to pursue art, with a focus of painting water-based medium.
Living in Minnesota for over forty years, he is known to his friends in Minnesota as Paul Kwok. Minnesota’s rich natural environment has enabled Paul to enjoyed watching the daily rising and setting of the sun, observing the changing phenomena of the sky, distant landscapes with trees and reflections on water. Staying outdoors for long hours At time, these experiences have evoked great feelings within him and inspired him to re-create in his semi-abstract painting’s evocative images of sunrises and sunsets, lakes, reflections, and shadows, all composed dynamically by nature’s balancing and constantly changing force.
In Paul’s preferred medium of painting, he combines traditional paper and brushes from China with rich colors from the West. His friend Suet Bil Hui introduced him to the works of many renowned painters, mostly from Hong Kong paramount among them the works and the theory of Lui Shou Kwan, Hui’s teacher. His study of these painters helped Paul build upon his foundation in western training with innovative inputs from the East. Paul has been a full-time artist since 1996 and became a member of the artist co-op Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art, and currently occupies a studio in their building. He has exhibit his work in the United States as well as in Hong Kong where his work is respected for its creativity and strength.
Guests celebrating Paul’s exhibit opening and birthday at Peking Garden
The opening day of the exhibit, December 2nd happened to occur on an auspicious birthday for Kwok so the College invited many of Kwok’s friends to attend a reception in his honor that was followed with a special banquet celebration at Peking Garden Restaurant in St. Paul which was attended by about 60 guest that included family members from Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada.
Kwok’s exhibit is scheduled to be on display until the end of June, 2025, at Johnston Hall, 2/F-, which is a secured building, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota: Open only Office Hours: 8-4 pm,-Monday to Friday -101 Pleasant Street SE-Minneapolis, MN 55455-Call: 612-625-2020 Email: [email protected] to verify hours and dates.