From a bank executive to a freelance artist, Chueng Chi Wai has devoted himself to portraying the desolate lives of the underprivileged.
At the age of 55, he was a senior bank executive and had reached the level of a departmental chief. In 2000, at the peak of his career, he chose to leave his position and transition to the cultural arts. One of his works is a portrait titled “Among the Mortals”.
After 20 years in business, Chueng Chi Wai’s essence has always been imbued with an artistic flair. At 55, he was a senior bank executive, having served at a departmental level. Today, he has completely left the financial world, holding a palette and a brush, freely sketching his profound reflections on society. Having only taken up the brush in the stage of life known as “knowing the mandate of heaven,” how will his rich experiences color his artworks? Yesterday, reporters saw the answer as his first portrait collection “Looking at the World” was published.
Choice: To be an official or to be free?
Chueng Chi Wai’s studio is hidden in a software park on Yingbin Road in Panyu. Stepping inside, the walls irregularly showcase dozens of his works: all are vivid and distorted portraits with exaggerated deformations.
“These paintings are inadequate; one can tell at a glance that they lack the fundamental skills of sketching!” an art expert once criticized bluntly. Indeed, Chueng Chi Wai did not receive formal artistic training or attend an art school, nor had he apprenticed under a master. “My techniques are all self-taught through exploration and experimentation, with most themes derived from newspaper news, expressing my inner feelings towards external matters,” he said with an open smile.
In the mid-1980s, a young Chueng Chi Wai began his career as the director of an office in a major provincial organization, and was promoted to a full division-level official just after his 30s. By the age of 40, he had become the head of a bank in Guangdong, rising to the rank of departmental chief.
Surprisingly, in 2000, at the peak of his career, he resolutely left his position to transition into cultural endeavors.
“Being an official is far less freeing than painting! I have stood high above society, looking down upon it, and also gazing up, allowing me to genuinely perceive its injustices.”
Painting: Giving voice to the suffering
In early 2008, he began conceptualizing his first watercolor portrait, focusing on coal miners, earthquake survivors, and migrant workers—the marginalized often featured prominently in his works. Within just two years, he created nearly 200 watercolor portraits. Flipping through his collection “Observing Humanity,” each face appears like an insightful essay.
The chaos of the Iraq War in the news sparked Chueng Chi Wai’s creative inspiration. In “Iraqi Woman,” she gazes at the departed, her brows furrowed, her expression contorted, and her mouth open in a scream. Following the Sichuan earthquake, Chueng painted a Qiang ethnic grandfather who lost his beloved grandson. In the incident of the Chengdu bus explosion, he depicted the escapees and survivors…
Beside each artwork, there is a text that directly reflects Chueng Chi Wai’s profound contemplation of the vicissitudes of life. The text beside “Retirement” reads, “Before retirement, ranks are determined by job positions; after retirement, they are determined by levels of blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol.” The text accompanying “Transformation” says, “I watch you through the peephole on my door, and you look even worse than I do.”
Discussing life, he summarized it in twelve words: “Birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, joy, separation, union, health, freedom.” He believes, “Freedom is having enough time to do what one loves and to speak out for those who suffer.” Having passed fifty, Cheung Chi Wai embarked on a new journey in life, feeling happy and fulfilled.