‘The Glass Facade’
幻象 ．人生
by Lee Du Ploy
Opening Night: Friday 3 February 2017 (6-9pm)
Exhibition runs until Sat 24 February, 2017
Opens every day from 11am – 7pm
Closed on Sunday, Monday and public holidays.
Curator: Sarah Greene
ORGANISED BY: Blue Lotus Gallery
Venue:
ZZHK Gallery, 3 Wa Lane (between 227-229 Hollywood Road) Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
About the Exhibition (short version):
The new year marks a new beginning so we set our new year’s resolutions: we hope to be thinner, make lots of money and enjoy our lives as best as we can. We are looking for happiness. Unfortunately this quest can be challenging at times.
Mental illness can be caused by genetic heritage or the wrong chemistry in the brain. But often it is thrown upon us as a reaction to deep trauma and pure tragedy. Bad things happen. We can't protect ourselves from the hardship that life intends to dump on us. And we all react very differently. This is what intrigues Lee do Ploy the most. Lee has many faces himself: psychiatrist, art dealer, writer, husband and lover. Through his paintings of portraits we meet some exceptional troubled human beings and we learn an invaluable lesson: that however different we make assume ourselves to be, we are remarkably alike. According to Lee there is hope, with a bit of help and good endeavor we can all find contentment. We just need to look in the right places.
展覽簡介：
2017年的新年願望你許下了嗎？新一年願望除了希望身體安好，工作順利及家庭和睦外，保持身心及精神健康亦是很重要一環。
精神健康對香港都市人尤其重要，除了由遺傳或是大腦中錯誤的化學物質引起外，亦可由其他原因引起。每一個人人生中都會遇到不幸的事情，當悲劇被拋在我們身上，怎樣去處理深層創傷及負面的情感，是決定我們精神健康的要素。
Lee du Ploy 作為一名心理學家，他將他一生中遇到案例故事主角畫下，每幅作品背後都是一個精彩絕倫的故事，帶我們認識人性的最深，最痛，最真實的情感。
Lee的一生中央扮演了多個角色，他除了是一名心理學家、作家，藝術家及畫廊東主以外，他亦是別人的丈夫，父親及愛人。
Lee希望透過展覽帶出正面信息，讓藝術愛好者欣賞藝術品時亦同時得到啓發，祝願大家新一年更美好。
Portrait of Artist: Lee Du Ploy (Photo Credit: Marcel Heijnen)
About the Artist:
The Life of Lee du Ploy has followed a varied and challenging path. He experienced both the hardship and joy of being broke and a millionaire. He encountered many stories and lived quite the story of his own. Born in Africa, he travelled far and wide to follow his two obsessions: Art & Psychology. Lee du Ploy is a therapist, art dealer, husband and lover but being a painter is what he enjoys the most.
關於藝術家：
Lee du Ploy的一生如像一部電影，如幻如真。 由身無分文的小伙子，辛努多年致富，他用一生，追隨他的兩個迷戀：藝術與心理學。
他的一生中央扮演了多個角色，他除了是一名心理學家，作家，收藏家，藝術家及畫廊東主以外，他亦是別人的丈夫，父親及別人的愛人。
About the exhibition (extended version):
Mental illness can be caused by genetic heritage or the wrong chemistry in the brain. But often it is thrown upon us as a reaction to deep trauma and pure tragedy. Bad things happen. We can't always avoid and protect ourselves from the hardship that life intends to dump on us. And we all react very differently.
This is what intrigues Lee do Ploy the most. He muses on it in his writing by describing various encounters with patients each reacting their own unique mentally troubled way to bestowed misfortune and deep distress. His writing is clear and non-judgemental. It’s almost scary how he makes the worst mental inflictions seem normal, as if it could happen to ourselves tomorrow. As he says: 'Its never easy to hear harrowing tales of how life went wrong. I was always struck not by how different, but how much alike we are. Language and attitudes may change but invariably the problems of human psychology remain the same.”
Lee is quite special himself. At first encounter he seems quite crazy, very chaotic jumping from one topic to the other while playing magic tricks, pulling a HK$ 5 coin from behind my ear. I have no idea what to make of him. I listen to a waterfall of stories and it makes me wonder which of his stories are true and which ones are false. Was he really born in Malawi? Did he really make a fortune and than gave it all away? Does he really have a stash of Picassos stored on his attic? And was he indeed a psychologist treating some the world most rich and famous? I was inclined to not believe any of it but than one day when I was in his little gallery listening to his waterfall of loosely knitted stories, a lady walked in and came to thank him for curing her. And outside another old man was for his free treatment. He has something with his knee, he said. And I did see a Miro etching and a miniature Henry Moore sculpture on his mantle piece. I scratched my head.
If all true, Lee has many faces himself indeed: Psychologist, healer, art dealer, writer, husband and lover. When I face Lee's work. I don't know what I'm looking at, is he the painter or the sitter? The doctor or the patient? The dealer or the artist? I don't know. But its right that ambiguity that keeps me coming back for more. His roughly painted portraits, some hauntingly beautiful and others awfully ugly are intriguing just like himself.
Lee himself doesn't care, what matters to him is that he can keep painting and writing with as his main muse the flawed troubled human being. 'I love painting more than anything else; its a way to see without looking and to feel without thinking.'
In his book he offers a way out of depression and sheer misery. 'I see all young men do, a vision of the future. Here, with a little help, persuasion and honest endeavor, all those afflicted by the terrible disease of unhappiness can find fulfillment. One most just learn to look in the right place'.
After numerous more conversations, things start to make sense, despite his chaotic ways, some of his sayings resonates a deep truth and I start to wonder as crazy as it all sounds, if all his stories might be true after all. Who knows and does it really matter? As he says himself, thoughts are perception. Its how we see the world, and what we expect. This collection of portraits and the people he treated within, taught me an invaluable lesson, that however different we make assume ourselves to be, we are remarkably alike.
關於他的作品：
人生無常，每一個人人生中都會遇到不幸的事情，當悲劇被拋在我們身上，如何去處理深層創傷及負面的情感，是決定我們精神健康的要素。
即使精神疾病多是遺傳或是大腦中錯誤的化學物質引起。Lee作為一個心理學家，治療過的病人，則多為悲劇中的主角。
Lee 用藝術及寫作將他作為一名心理學家的經歷記下，每幅畫作背後都是一個精彩絕倫的人生故事。他的作品之所以動人心弦，是因為他沒有太多放入太多主觀角度，他用最真實最直接方法描述，帶我們認識故事中的主角。Lee的輕描淡寫的表達方式，指出精神疾病其實可以輕易地發生在任何人生上。
Lee 解釋：「當聽到悲劇故事，我心內總是很難過。但作為一個心理學家，我從中理解到，即使每個人面對問題時的表達方式可能不同，但心理感受的始終保持不變。」
認識Lee的初時，總覺得他有點奇怪。例如他總是從一個話題跳到另一個話題，又會突然在你耳邊變出一個五元硬幣。他跟我說的故事，我總是處於信如不信之間，我想知道他的故事哪些是真實的，哪些是假的。
例如他到底是否真的於非洲的馬拉維草原出生？他真的是一個富翁，然後都把錢送捐走了？他的閣樓上真的有畢加索的收藏品嗎？我傾向於不去相信他的故事。
但有一天，我一如既往在他的小畫廊聽他說他的故事，一個女士走進來，特地來感謝他治愈她... 另一個老人，在畫廊外面等待Lee為他作的免費治療。而在他的閣樓，我的確看到一個亨利·摩爾（Henry Moore) 的雕塑。
我抓抓了我的頭...
如果Lee說的都是事實，他的一生中央扮演了多個角色，他除了是一名心理學家，作家，收藏家，
藝術家及畫廊東主以外，他亦是別人的丈夫，父親及別人的愛人。
看Lee的作品，我不太清楚我應該注意什麼，他到底是在畫他自己或是其他人？他到底是醫生或是病人？收藏家還是藝術家？
我不太確定。他畫的肖像，一些令人覺得非常醜陋但是又有趣，一些又十分美麗。
我問他，Lee說他自己不太在乎其他人的看法，對他來說重要的是，他可以繼續繪畫和寫作，繼續幫助有困難或受到困擾的人。「我一生中最喜歡就是繪畫，繪畫是我感覺的來源。」
他的著作「幻像．人生」，談論抑鬱症及如何走出這個病的困擾。「只要用正確的方式學習處理困難，正確的看待問題，抑鬱症是可以痊癒的。」
經過與Lee無數的對話，儘管他的表達方式有點混亂，我開始了解及明白Lee，他一生面對及研究瘋狂，他的故事是真是假，誰知道，但又是否真的很重要？如Lee所說，「我們的認知是基於我們如何看待世界，我們到底期望什麼。」
他的人物肖像作品，和他的一生，給我一個寶貴的教訓，即使我們認為每個人都是不同的，我們是內心都是一樣。
PRESS RECEIVED:
2017-2 | Time Out Magazine: 'Interview: LEE DU PLOY, The psychologist-artist on his portraits of people with mental illnesses'
For further details please contact:
Gillian Au | Gallery Manager| T: 9389 9030 | gill@bluelotus-gallery.com
Sarah Greene | Gallery Director | T: 6100 1295 | sarah@bluelotus-gallery.com
