“He is fiercely protective of his own spiritual world, and is striving to send his work out to the world…. The spirit pulses powerfully within the deeper layers, not on the surface level of his work.” — Yoshitomo Nara

 

Tang Contemporary Art is proud to announce the opening of a solo exhibition by Hong Kong artist Kila Cheung, launching on May 30, 2026, at 4:00 PM at our Wong Chuk Hang space in Hong Kong. The exhibition will feature approximately seventeen of the artist's most recent paintings, wood sculptures and installation works.

 

Kila’s creative practice stems from a profound state of being—an ongoing, raw exposure to the world. For him, creation is not a calculated, deliberate construction, but an almost instinctual response to existence. Whether absorbing the mundane trivialities of daily life, local or international events, meaningful encounters, or the white noise of everyday experience—be they tangible realities or AI-generated ephemera—he internalizes them all until the irrepressible urge to create takes over. These seemingly fragmented and disparate perceptions form the vital bedrock of his artistic practice.

 

In an era where Artificial Intelligence disrupts artistic creation and images are generated with effortless immediacy, Kila compels us to reconsider the very identity of the artist: What distinguishes me from AI? Will I eventually be replaced? In response, he leans into the irreplaceable nuances that separate humanity from machine—our perception of time, pressure, joy, and sorrow, as well as the subtle, authentic threads that bind an artwork to the living world.

 

Three years ago, the renowned Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara wrote a preface for Kila’s monograph “Rambler,” observing that the artist “is fiercely protective of his own spiritual world, and is striving to send his work out to the world….” and noting that “the spirit pulses powerfully within the deeper layers, not on the surface level of his work.” At the time, Kila did not fully grasp the weight of these words. Yet, after years of continuous, unrelenting creation, he has come to understand that art poured from one's own life naturally carries its own living, breathing heartbeat.

 

This profound contemplation on the "vitality of life" is beautifully manifested in Kila’s works Drifting House and Zero Distance. Drifting House, conceived in 2018 while the artist was living in Tokyo, was born from a profound nostalgia for home, sparking a series of works dedicated to the concept of domesticity. In the painting, a small house floats aimlessly through the cosmos. The piece was eventually acquired by a collector who hung it in his living room next to an antique clock. In November 2025, a devastating five-alarm fire struck the collector’s residential estate, resulting in numerous casualties and plunging the entire city into mourning. While the collector and his family safely escaped, they were forced to leave their ruined home behind and seek refuge with relatives. Five months later, when the collector stepped back into his home for the first time, everything remained frozen in the shadow of that tragedy five months prior. Yet, right beside the antique clock, Drifting House stood intact, its hands metaphorically still moving, witnessing the relentless flow of time. When salvaging what remained, the collector took Drifting House with him, letting it accompany them as they await a new home. In his 2026 work, Zero Distance, Kila takes this narrative a step further, directly responding to the vulnerability and anxiety harbored within the collective human psyche. Through this piece, he seeks to offer an intimacy free of distance—a sanctuary that embraces a genuine, profound emotional connection.

 

Another significant highlight of this exhibition is a "show-within-a-show" curated by Kila, titled Living Living 5-year-old Artist, which features works by his daughter, Dawnette Cheung, effectively extending the theme of the "Living Living artist" to the next generation. Through her art, we witness a pure desire for expression—a state of painting that is innocent, untainted, and free from over-calculated thought. This represents an incredibly precious stage of life. For Kila, a child's creation serves as a poignant reminder that certain fundamental perceptions and truths already exist long before a person reaches maturity; they are simply forgotten during the process of growing up. Art, perhaps, is the ultimate way to continuously return to that primordial vitality of life.