Teaching and Learning: A Close Affinity between Teachers and Students

There have been numerous inspiring teachers and talented graduates at the Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, since its establishment sixty years ago. The limited space available here means it is not possible to discuss every one of them. This article talks about the remarkable artists, including Liu Siu-jane, Ho Siu-kee, Shieh Ka-ho and Koon Wai-bong, who graduated from the Department, advanced their independent careers by opening up a fresh horizon of art, and received awards at the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition (renamed as the Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition and then Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards), the first platform provided by the Hong Kong Museum of Art to present official prizes to emerging artists. This article also describes how those artists were drawn to the Department’s teachers, how the students and teachers helped each other improve during the teaching process, and how the artists drew inspiration and developed what they had learned to create their own style. By discussing the relationship the artists have with the Department, the article affords a glimpse of the contributions the Department made towards nurturing art professionals.