Hilarie HON, LAU Sze Man, Dorothy WONG Ka Chung and Benjamin RYSER: Dreams of the Pantomime Horse
韓幸霖、劉詩敏、黃加頌 及 Benjamin RYSER 《啞劇馬之夢》
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16 May - 18 June 2026
13/F, Gallery EXIT Gallery EXIT presents ‘Dreams of the Pantomime Horse’, a group exhibition featuring works by Hilarie HON, LAU Sze Man, and the artist duo Dorothy WONG Ka Chung and Benjamin RYSER. Taking its cue from the figure of the “pantomime horse”, a single animal body animated by multiple performers, the exhibition follows artists moving through a world in flux as they listen, gather, and bring back a constellation of stories to be shared within the exhibition space. An opening and exhibition sharing, moderated by Louiza HO, Associate Curator of Tai Kwun, will be held on 16 May. The pantomime horse’s “costume” functions both as concealment and as vessel, enfolding layered bodies, reverberations, and narratives of dwelling. Through painting, moving image, and sound, the four artists each articulate fragmented yet overlapping stories. Like voices taking turns beneath the costume, these narratives invite viewers to drift between fragments, transitioning from one stage to another. Stories of strangers, borrowed tales, and intimate accounts are placed side by side, interwoven and unresolved. Between these shifting theatres, a bird threads its way through the scenes, keeping pace with our footsteps, at times seeking shelter beneath a rain of text that stretches across several cities. Working in oil, Hilarie HON practices a form of introspective observation, with imagery that oscillates between the absurd and the childlike. Anonymous figures, houses, and trees are rendered through naïve mark-making into a visual language at once familiar and estranged, reflecting an inner world of quiet depth. In her new work 'Omnipresent Daylight', light ceases to function merely as illumination; it becomes a pervasive force that permeates time, soothing and revealing latent memories. LAU Sze Man's practice has evolved from her early collection of roadside imagery towards a more "writerly" mode of making. Dispensing with preparatory sketches, she layers spontaneous lines and gestures, transforming literature, mythology, and intimate narratives into text-like pictorial surfaces that guide viewers beyond fixed readings towards personal interpretation. In 'Contrapposto that Covered with Blanket', a sculptural figure balances two spring-like trees upon its shoulders, probing the fragile equilibrium between freedom and constraint held under sustained tension. Dorothy WONG Ka Chung and Benjamin RYSER’s community-based research and creation projects often involve collecting stories from individuals and families to accumulate urban and land-based collective memories. The works on display in this exhibition include 'Portraits of Doves Under Typhoon Signal No. 8' and the video and sound installation 'Rockfall and Birdsong'. ‘Rockfall and Birdsong’ was created during the ‘Tree Tree Tree Person – Taroko Arts Residency Project’ in Taiwan with the artists’ long-term collaborators in the Truku tribe. Following the 2024 Hualien earthquake, friends in the tribe recounted, through the echoes of their bodies, the rumbling of fear experienced during the quake and the sound of birds singing, unscathed by the disaster. The work also asks how we can confront trauma and hope within the same body and community. Hilarie HON (b.1994, Hong Kong) graduated with a BA (Hons) in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University in 2016. Specializing in oil painting, she approaches her work with deep personal introspection. Her paintings often depict intense and surreally unsettling scenes, reflecting her inner world while evoking emotions and a profound sense of alienation. Hon has participated in both solo and group exhibitions organized by Gallery EXIT in Hong Kong. Her solo exhibitions include ‘Shaping Surface into Light’ (2025), ‘Sunlight Murmur’ (2023), ‘Yesterday's Brightness’ (2020), ‘The Daily Disappearance of the Sun’ (2018), and ‘BLOOMY GLOOMY BOOM’ (2017). Group exhibitions with the gallery include ‘Art Brussels’ (2025), ‘Art Collaboration Kyoto 2021’ (Gallery EXIT / Satoko Oe Contemporary, Japan, 2021) and ‘Shek-O Sublime’ (2019). Other recent group exhibitions include ‘The Rule of Three’ (otherthings by THE SHOPHOUSE, 2025), ‘31 Women Artists Hong Kong I’ (10 Chancery Lane, Hong Kong, 2022), ‘In Search of Absence’ (Korean Cultural Center Hong Kong, 2021), and ‘Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With’ (MOCA Taipei, Taiwan, 2019). The artist currently lives and works in Hong Kong. LAU Sze Man (b. 1995, Hong Kong) graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts with an MFA in Fine Arts. She engages with immediacy, misreadings, illusion, and deception, composing visual passages from the reverse side of reality. Working primarily with painting, collage, and video, she draws on decontextualized fragments and the scriptural quality of painting to find weight within moments shaped by contingency and lightness. Her recent work centers on the tension between mobility and dwelling, and their ongoing pull against the idea of birthplace. Recent exhibitions include ‘Don’t Go Down Stop Sand Sinking Ground’ (KCCA, Taiwan, 2026) and ‘Stones that Got Thrown In Didn’t Hit the Ground’ (ACO Art Space, Hong Kong, 2021). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Escape from the Traps Given by Angels’ (CRASH, Hong Kong, 2025) and ‘On the Savage Road’ (Zit-Dim Art Space, Tainan, 2025). She is currently preparing a zine-residency presentation with Asia Art Archive for late June. Lau lives and works between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Dorothy WONG Ka Chung (b.1991, Hong Kong) and Benjamin RYSER (b. 1989, Switzerland) are a Hong Kong Swiss media and sound art duo. In recent years, they have worked across Europe, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, using images, video, and sound to engage local communities. Their practice centers on displaced groups in diverse contexts and examines questions of belonging, identity, imagined homelands, and history. Through collecting individual stories, they explore possibilities for collaboration between artists and local communities, building collective urban memories and nurturing cross regional community imaginaries. Their site specific works have been presented in playgrounds between Hong Kong and Berlin, in supermarkets in Kowloon City and beyond, on a boat at sunset in the Venice lagoon, and in the mountains of Taiwan’s Truku community. They have collaborated with museums and institutions including M+, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Goethe-Institut Hong Kong, WMA, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Kunstmuseum Thurgau (Switzerland), SomoS Art (Berlin), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Hong Gah Museum, The Cube Project Space (Taiwan), and Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council in Venice. |