Bitter sweet - Chinese fans and seashells - (dedicated to Edward Gage)

is a 'cubist' work made to recall my first personal painting show in 1982. ( Carlton Studios, Edinburgh)

I was a postgraduate student of Edinburgh College of Art in Drawing and Painting then and had just arrived . Some months later, someone cancelled his show at Carlton Studios and asked if I wanted to do one. So by pure chance, I had my first personal exhibition there. I named the show Chinese Fans and seashells. It was a theme I began in June of 1982, in Canada. It got further developed in Scotland some months later in the relationship of the idea of trinity, simply through the triangular forms of both the seashells and fans. 

To my surprise, Edward Gage defended my works on Scotsman by using an expression ' Bitter Sweet'.

By coincidence again, now almost forty years later, I happened to see an old Hong Kong film titled ' missing Cinderella' on youtube.

It was directed by my once mentor Ng Wui in 1959.

in one scene, the protagonists sang a song in the kitchen and they use the expression ' bitter sweet' in Chinese.

the film was actually a readaptation of Roman holiday by William Wyler of 1953.

After my Rome period ( Nov 2003- June 2018) I returned to Hong Kong to continue with my project- Hong Kong films and my childhood memories, and when I stumbled across this coincidence, I could not help but do this work in a cube where various facets denote the various phases of my life . Yes, bitter sweet, as described by Edward Gage.

thank you , Mr.Gage. 
Bernadette Lee alias LEE-PISAPIA Kam Fu Bernadette.

18/07/2021

 ( the installation of the Chinese Fans and seashells is part of a Retrospective, set in my secret garden in the outskirts of Rome, Italy.  Some of them were once exhibited in Carlton Studios , Edinburgh in 1982 )

for more details kindly go to my other site: www.bernadettekamfulee.it