Artist Statement by

LEE-PISAPIA Kam Fu Bernadette ( married name)

Alias

Bernadette Kam Fu LEE ( LI ) ( maiden name )

Space 

Calligraphy 

Color

Poetry

Childhood memories 

It began in the winter of 1982, with Professor Jimmy Cummings, about the possibility of a life time research on Chinese Calligraphy and Colour.

Then I was awarded a scholarship to spend one month in Florence, Italy by Edinburgh College of Art.

In January of 1982, upon returning to the College, I had pondered about the possibility of incorporating a third element: poetry into my research.

A year later, with these three elements in mind, I carried on my research in Italy, at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, founded on the suggestion of Michelangelo.

The air of creativity provided by Florence became the poetic force behind the research.

I wrote poems before embarking on a new canvas.

The large scale works were atmospheric, not Leonardo like, but changed from the physical impasto of Monet to the stained process of Frankenthaler.

Watercolour way of manipulating the paint seemed to have closer affinity to the changing mood in the poems.

Breathing exercises came naturally in order to carry the unhesitant force, necessary in order that the single brush stroke is loaded with the purest expression- an oriental concept of non action.

Action, therefore, was best put forward when non action is achieved.

The non action is the pure breath.

In 2000, the year I was invited to do a one month residency in Villa Romana, Florence, founded by Max Klinger, I painted a series of works with blind folded approach—I only opened my eyes when I had to mix colours. The forms were Chinese characters conceived at heart and were painted without seeing how the forms grew.

Only pure breath was the guide.

This work was the beginning of a series where layering of paint was replaced by layering of canvas.

The top layer was the poem by Li Ching Chao from Sung dynasty, the second and third layer underneath were the translated versions in Italian and German.

The second part of the poem, was completed in Canada, while I was teaching at the White Mountain Academy of Fine Arts, where native culture was part of the program. So the big panels were stretched with more layers: Objiwe, English and French versions of the Chinese poem.

A performance was necessary in order the piece be completed. So these large scale painted poems were all performed by myself ( reciting the Chinese part ) as well as the spectators who were happy to participate together.

Interaction between myself, the work, and the spectators became one piece of work. 

It is like the Large Glass of Duchamp turned intuitive, no longer intellectual, but zen like.

Indeed, it was ‘ Zen and Marcel Duchamp, a possible relationship? ‘ that I wrote in 1989 (as a thesis of the five year spending at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze) that became another element to accompany the life long research on Chinese calligraphy and colour , begun in 1983.

A East West cultural association cofounded by me in Florence further assisted me in realising the necessity of sharing my oriental approach with the participants who came to do zen workshops with me.

In 2005, I moved my studio to Rome. The big garden allowed me to be a bit closer to nature.

Installations of works were inspired by the garden where I planted some bamboo, making the garden more oriental in order that the ancient painted poems could breathe in freer spirit.

The Duchamp spirit at one point did not encourage me to proceed with the poetic approach experimented earlier on.

After some time I went back to observational approach: drawing .

The bamboo planted in my garden left beautiful shadows all over at certain time of the day.

Such poetic seeing reminded me of the origin of bamboo painting discovered by Lady Wei of the tenth century.

So the joy of drawing and painting which I enjoyed so much in Britain, especially during my year as a visiting student in Scotland (1980/1981) came back.

Like a little child, I became alive again.

With this spirit, I went back to the past and pretended to be a child painting some watercolours, and with worn out brushes.

Forget -me -not was an album born at that period ( Bernadette.simpl.com).

Pretending to be a teenager and painted like one was another experiment. 

So ‘what is fashion’ came back. It was also an inner interrogation of my experience as a foreign correspondent from Italy  all these years.

‘ Art and Fashion’ was a series of articles I wrote 1996-1997. The exclusive interviews with the top fashion designers in Italy allowed me to raise questions on Art, on daily life, on trivial issues or on minor art .

It was a way of revisiting my past in order to feel alive.

A series of works painted on ceramic tiles ‘ hypothesis notebooks’ pays homage to Edinburgh College of Art  in 2015. It is about doing the Chinese ancient ideograms without an intellectual approach. The questioning of inner understanding of someone who knows the ideograms all her life comes out  intuitively.

Putting the baggage of accumulated knowledge aside and see the pictograms afresh, in a new light.

Four self published volumes of catalogues ‘ Hypothesis workbook’ came out during those years.

After this period, the purchasing of an I Pad allowed me to see some old Hong Kong films.

So the first I Pad drawings based on Hong Kong films came into being. 

This project became a departure point of the intensive short course I did at the Royal College of Art in 2016.

Titled ‘ Now I remember’ was a work I did at the exhibition at the gallery there. The group show lasted two hours like a film.

In the summer of 2018, I moved to Hong Kong to continue this parallel project: Hong Kong films and my childhood memories.

The life long project on Chinese calligraphy and colour continues.

But it is also the ‘ Now I remember’ project that allows me to go back to the pure joy of doing drawing and painting.

Or just to be myself, as youthful and fresh again, in order to make my Duchamp shadow breathing with the purest zen spirit of inaction.

The latest works turned digital. It is a way to pay homage to my favourite artist David Hockney, who inspired me to go back to seeing again.

Seeing with an external eye, an inner eye, an eye that weaves with space, a space which breathes, in and out, in colour, in white, ever changing, like the various points of vision in a film, or  like any oriental poetic calligraphic lines, infused  with universal energy.

The next project, therefore, is to animate the inner space, spiritually.

Living one’s life like in a film- is the possible theme of such project.

Drunk on White

A poem written by me in 1984

Drunk

Drunk on white

They say

The drunkards’ love lie not in wine

but in mountains and waters

In waters and mountains

In empty space

In colours

Intertwined among lines of thousands

Among the lines

A dream is woven

A dream is broken

A dream is born

White clouds

Coloured clouds

In white , colours

In colours, white

Drunk

Finally drunk

In White

LEE-PISAPIA, Kam Fu Bernadette 

Alias Bernadette Kam Fu LEE

1/05/2021

Mui Wo

Hong Kong

All works ( paintings, drawings, calligraphy, catalogues, design of catalogues, photos* , videos, text ) were done by me.
* photo: portrait of me in front of Palm tree (1989) by a professional  photographer based in Italy whose name I forgot 

portrait of me during a performance, by Antonio PISAPIA, 2000

screen shot of booklet for the Chinese dream II - by Lois Conyers from Canada

( booklet bound by a native artist. This painting was donated to the Art gallery of Algoma, Canada in 2003 )

photos of fashion in the magazine - courtesy of The Securities Journal of Hong Kong 

articles in English with pen name Bernadette K. Pisapia were written by me

the Chinese version was translated by the magazine . 
 
narration of the video by me ( both text and voice over )

Poems seen in the video were written by me ( the poem Mirror of the Nile was translated by Vittoria Pratesi in Italian) 

ancient poem by Tao Chien ( Eastern Jin dynasty) with Italian text (almost at the end of the video )- 

'words turned into silence-' La parola diventa silenzio was translated by Father Gianni Giampietro from Chinese to Italian 

Painting Italian Journey 1981 was done at Edinburgh College of Art (1980-1981 )

copyright 2021 LEE-PISAPIA, Kam Fu Bernadette or copyright 2021 Bernadette Kam Fu LEE