Rossi & Rossi is pleased to announce Dark, the gallery’s second solo exhibition of the work of Szelit Cheung (b. 1988). The Hong Kong artist carefully layers shades of orange, green and blue to produce meticulous spatial compositions on canvas that both define darkness and make viewers aware of it. Opening on 18 November, the presentation features new paintings that extend Cheung’s ongoing investigation into the essence of emptiness and void.

Buttressed by minimalistic interiors, the artist’s paintings trace the illumination of a space by a single light source, often through a window, a skylight or an opening in a wall. Cheung fixates on light: the basic element that makes up the human visual perception of dimensions. The luminosity in his works directs the viewer’s gaze to identify structures, whilst the perpetual ray of light in the frame halts the sense of time. This stillness – in which one’s mind finds comfort to linger – is akin to the state of encountering the sublime. In the exhibition’s forthcoming catalogue, art historian and curator Penny Dan Xu likens Cheung’s ‘negative images’ to Japanese architect Kengo Kuma’s ‘negative architecture’, in which structure is similarly unsubstantial, and meanings are not constructed through symbolic or narrative representation. Rather, Cheung’s works urge the audience to be present in order to build a reciprocal relationship in the viewing experience.

The thematic focus of Dark arises from the artist’s continual attempts to capture the essence of the void. Taking a turn from highlighting the sense of void and emptiness through complex architectural forms, the paintings in Dark are simpler in their composition, near the point of abstraction. Structural features, such as corners, openings and walls, still exist, but they dissolve into rudimentary forms and fade into a complex depth of colours. In this way, Cheung’s works straddle the line between figuration and abstraction, leaving viewers to decide what they see. 

Paintings on view in Dark correspond to four oil painting series: the eponymous Dark (2023), along with Cut (2023), Folding Space (2023) and Mado (2023). These titles are based on the initial conception of each composition and the development of the oil painting panels. 

In the series Dark, brightness pours into the artist’s imagined spaces. Darkness is defined with light, and shadows are depicted through multiple layers of orange, green and blue, rather than black pigments. Coats of various shades, layered together, absorb much of the visible spectrum of light.

Cut displays a tighter control of light. The openings for light on these panels are narrow, marking clear-cut boundaries between light and dark. These slits cast light as being comprised of hard, angled shapes that dissect the canvas into abstract forms.

With softened, reflected light illuminating only parts of the work, Folding Space takes on the question of how deceptive light can be. The luminous layer accentuates the work’s caved-in corners and dampens its protruding surfaces, reshaping our perception of the area’s structure.

In the gallery’s hallway, Mado occupies the walls, lining up as musical notes. The palm-sized paintings on wood scatter like distant stars in the night sky. Upon closer inspection, they reveal themselves as complex studies of light and space. 

Cheung’s works in this exhibition draw from the manipulation of space via light. His paintings thus offer a new way of seeing light, and they make known its transformative power to both spaces and, eventually, our minds.