chinese landscape / 垃圾山水

this is the first installation from trash i did in 2011. i was camping with my family on a secluded beach on south lantau when i noticed the trash that's been washed up and caught up in the undergrowth. coming from a background of a painter i started sorting the trash by colours and putting it into the shape of a colour wheel.

and this is how big the installation gets in 2013!

in anticipation of earth day 2013 environmental activist tracey read (www.plasticfreeseas.org) and me join forces to do the biggest installation ever. i call these outdoor installations "chinese landscape" or "垃圾山水" (trash mountain water): the reality of chinese nature as it is at this point in time. the landscape is still as beautiful as on any ancient ink drawing, but there is a new element: 垃圾 = trash.

for earth day 2013 my concept is to cover the whole beach with trash, sort it by colour and lay it out like a rainbow. in 6 hours tracey, me and around 50 volunteers bring to light the volume of 85 big rubbish bags full of trash, not including two refrigerators, half a boat, a government rubbish bin, construction pipes and ropes for shipping... and sadly that's only a fraction of the garbage on this beach. 

the most important message i want to convey with my "chinese landscape/垃圾山水" is to open your eyes to the massive problems of hong kong's excessive consumerist society. and at the same time i want you to see the beauty of hong kong's nature.  the best and most direct way to experience this is to volunteer at a "chinese landscape/垃圾山水". you get in physical contact with the left-overs of our consumerist society and you get to spend the whole day in the magnificent outdoors of hong kong. this is a much deeper experience than to just grasping it on an intellectual level. 
when people look at my photographs they usually perceive them as being beautiful and pleasing. only later comes the recognition that the colours are actually made up from lots of different pieces of trash.and that's hopefully the moment we start thinking about our consumerist habits, our life styles, our relationship to nature.

apple daily tv has done a report: please watch if you got two minutes (and understand chinese:)
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20130422/18236632

'time being' - a short tour

thank you. thanks to everyone who came yesterday and shared this special moment with me: it was the first time that i filled an entire gallery with my soul, and the first time in hongkong to actually say: hello here i am! 

this is a short video for all those who couldn't make it to my exhibition. 

thanks especially to kate and abid who are running the beautiful timeandspace.hk gallery. a big thank you also to lillian and betsy from winenthingshk.com for the sparkly and the perfect service. and thanks without words to my husband who gives me the inner and outer space to persue the art that is in my heart. and to my chilrden who try their best to do the same.

'time being'

'Time Being'

Time & Space presents Time Being, the first solo exhibition of German artist Liina Klauss opening on April 17 and running through to April 24.

Concerned with the visualization of time and influenced by Berlin street art, Klauss uses derelict paper and yellowing book pages as a canvas for her mixed media pieces. Through layers of slowly fading colours and ink on paper she creates a direct experience of the transience and impermanence of life.

For Klauss, the medium is as important as the painting itself: yellowed pages of an art encyclopedia make up the historical context with drawings and hues of colour representing the vibrant present. The artist combines water colours and ink with natural hand mixed paints and pigments such as clay or vegetable dyes.

Klauss intuitively uses shades of colours that are sensitively stacked into imaginary columns and correlations. This constructed network of colours and tones fade into the colour of the paper itself, leaving nothing but the subtlest trace.

As Klauss puts it: 'I'm expecting a certain sensitivity from the viewer. Even though I'm making the artwork, I'm doing nothing but pointing towards a reality that the viewer has to see and feel and experience within him or herself. Art is happening as much on the paper as it is happening through and within the viewer.'