Kwok Tsui: Many Moons Ago

24 Apr-5 Jul 2026

Overview

Kwok Tsui’s quiet, process-driven paintings express belonging and liminality through materiality rather than overt narrative. His subtractive method — removing rather than adding paint — becomes a metaphor for diaspora identity, where absence, erasure, and memory coexist.

Working primarily through subtraction, paint is removed from the surface to reveal light and form, creating shadows within, an order and tension between presence and absence, belonging and disconnection. This push and pull opens a contemplative ‘in-between’ space that feels otherworldly yet safe.

The muted, largely monochromatic surfaces are built from thin layers of paint, exposing traces of previous iterations and identities. Lines repeat across the surface in a unified horizontal direction, shaped by deliberately controlled brushstrokes. These linear rhythms hold a quiet vibration.

Recurring silhouetted circles evoke a range of associative and representational elements, often suggesting the moon, a portal, and the concept of completeness deeply rooted in Chinese culture.

Kwok Tsui (born 1989, China) is originally from Hong Kong, China, and now resides in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Kwok graduated from the Belfast School of Art in 2020 with First Class Honours and is an active member of QSS Gallery & Studios in Belfast.