It is fair to say that Jay Lau Ka-chun suffers for his art.
“Some days I spend up to 10 hours carving, so it can cause pain in my shoulders. I wear this quite a lot,” the 26-year-old says, holding up a portable wraparound neck and shoulder massager.
The printmaker is speaking in his studio in the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC) in Hong Kong’s Shek Kip Mei area.
Printmaking comes in many forms, from lithography to silk screen printing. Lau makes woodblock prints by hand, a type of relief printing method that can be traced back to China’s Tang dynasty (618-907).
On a studio wall leans a large, newly finished woodblock titled Reality but Virtual: Square. It is impossible not to be blown away by the dense intricacy of the 120cm by 90cm (47 inch by 35 inch) piece, which depicts Hong Kong’s skyline, the Liberty Square in Taiwan’s capital Taipei, and La Pietà by Michelangelo – a composition of Lau’s favourite things, which he patiently created with thousands of cuts.
