“It has been almost 40 years since I graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Canada. After returning to Macau in the early 80s, I started to work for the government and was in charge of fine art exhibitions. Ever since I had been organizing exhibitions only for others, and occasionally participate in joint exhibitions to show one or two of my own artworks, which could not reflect the comprehensiveness of my art creation.

This exhibition consists approximately thirty pieces of my outdoor Chinese ink sketches done during recent years. Although they cannot be considered as great work of art, yet can be regarded as a review of my searching and developing stages. Indeed, there are still many shortcomings which need improvement.

After my return to Macau, I try to apply western painting techniques on Chinese art, and also incorporated with Chinese calligraphy as a means of expression.  I had tried many ways, but the effect was not significant, so I went back to the starting point with outdoor sketching. At the beginning I drew with fiber pens on handmade paper, and then switched to Chinese ink on rice paper.  At the early stage, I was unable to handle the reaction between ink and water, but after years of practice, I gradually understand the interrelation between these two medias.

Over the years till present, I am still constantly thinking and SEARCHING the way to express myself in my own art works.”

— Henry Ma