Born in Macao in the 1980s, the painter, Lei Ieng Wai, is an active artist in Macao as well as Greater China. Graduating from the master programme of the painting division of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Lei has gained much reputation for his works. To reflect the glamour and indulgence that permeated the gambling industry in Macao, Lei uses luminous shades to highlight and register the social reality.
Lei’s studio is located on the mezzanine floor of an old-fashioned tong lau building. Triangular-shaped, the studio does not have much furniture, only a sofa, a coffee table and some painting tools. A blown-up poster of the Hong Kong singer Tse On Kei, is displayed casually on a prominent spot in harmony with the other objects in the studio.
Lei has a spontaneous working style. He would teach students from Friday to Sunday. Most of his students came from word of mouth. During office hours, he would teach art history in high schools, and the rest of his time he would either paint or rest. “When is my personal time? I am painting even in my resting time. It is inseparable from my everyday life,” Lei said.
With his own studio and a career that is taking off, this path is the fruit of years of labour. He was born to a family of artists, and so art has come naturally to him, and he learnt to make art with crayons, watercolour and gouache, but his passion lies in the discovery of oil paintings.
“I find crayons too bright and watercolour too light for me. Oil paintings are more optimal for my expression, and I am more familiar with oil painting techniques. But to speak the truth, these are just materials. The real thing is what the artist seeks to express,” Lei explained.
Nonetheless, when he was a student, Lei never thought of becoming a professional artist, seeing art more as a pastime. Because he did not achieve well in his studies, Lei at first joined the IT sector, making a living from assembling desktops, and later worked in the logistics, and switched to work in the arts with the introduction of the local artist Wong Ka Long, after he graduated from high school. He decided to apply for the painting stream at the leading arts college in China, the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, which became a significant step for his career.
“At that time, I only knew that I love painting. I am not good in my studies and foreign languages, and back then in Macao there is no subject that focuses purely on art-making, so I chose that painting programme, where I could draw and paint all day,” Lei explained.
When he first joined the academy, he was not familiar with the environment and the people there. Lei realised that the arts training on the Mainland is quite different from that in Hong Kong and Macao: it focuses more on the technical side and apprenticeship of the craft, rather than the creative thinking.
“I remember that there are assignments each week, and so each day it’s mainly just about working on the art assignments or sleeping, leaving little room for creativity. There are pros and cons to it. When there is inspiration, there is the need for techniques to render the inspiration.”
Once he graduated in 2008, Lei returned to Macao to continue his art career. In this period, his works gained the attention of major galleries in Macao, and secured the scholarship from Art For All Society to support him to complete a Master’s degree in oil painting in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2010, which helped him to further his artistic practice.
“Back then, a Master’s programme takes three years. In the first year, we learn the anatomy and drawing of the human body. In the next two years, there is plenty of time for creative work. I was able to make use of the techniques learnt during my first degree to make new work.”
After completing his Master’s programme, Lei went on to set up his own studio, becoming a full-time artist, making work and teaching. “I enjoy painting, but I know that in order to sustain my passion, I have to have a reliable source of income, and so I get into teaching. Luckily, Macao is a small city, and so I can teach in the morning and return to my studio in the afternoon to make my own work, as it’s only a ten-minute ride between the two places. It is this convenience that makes me stay in Macao. Moreover, now that Macao is becoming a more global city, my work can be featured in Greater China and even internationally. So there is not much difference where I am based, as long as I can continue to produce good work,” Lei said.
When he was a student, Lei would go on field trips, painting the landscapes. He loves Nature, and soon he discovered that for him the joy of painting the landscape lies in manoeuvring the shades of light instead. This pointed towards a new direction for his work. “I felt that light is a very special concept and can represent the time we live in. Nowadays everyone is staying at home with a digital screen, and even during this interview, there is a lot of intense light being projected onto us. We live our lives in the manipulation of light.”
In 2011, Lei put on his own solo exhibition. Entitled Sympathetic, it explored the relationships generated from the intersection of light in spaces. Later on, his series entitled Echo engaged with the reflection of light that generates space. In recent years, he departed from his earlier theme, and focuses more on using dot, line and plane to depict a 3D postmodern era, revealing his views towards the self’s relationship with the society and light. “My painting style is inclined towards using luminous colours to reflect Macao’s society, a city saturated with gaming, the lure of money, high-tech products, a culture of the here and now. I hope to articulate this culture in my own artistic medium.”
After so many years of hard work, Lei has no sign of stopping. What, indeed, motivates him to work so tirelessly? “It is all about making some space for myself to imagine, and I find such space and freedom in my art,” Lei reassured us.
