Art

The Suzhou Museum, held in a Polaroid.

Ink calligraphy peeling off a concrete wall.

A lightbulb painted on a corner house in the Creative Quarter.

Hanging scrolls in the galleries of the National Palace Museum.

A lane of lanterns at Shengjiaxu, and one small red smile in the dark.

Two paper lanterns against a white wall, one warm, one pale.

Tracey Emin’s neon: “If you don’t have anything nice to say… don’t say anything at all.”

Rainbow fish lanterns swimming through the dark.

A school of silk goldfish swimming between the lanterns.

A tiled street sign and the warm pulse of Madrid.

Broken Chair in front of the Palais des Nations.

Three paper lanterns at three heights of warm light.

A summer walk between plane trees and old façades.

A little house afloat in the harbour.

A carved stone face in a garden fountain.

A red palace lantern carried high above the Shangyuan crowd.

A poster for Kore-eda’s Monster on a pillar.

MOON, painted with an arrow on the side of a building.

The pagoda lit in gold, standing over its own reflection.

The Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei.

Rainbow carp leaping across a sky of paper moons.

Portraits over the high table.

A guardian statue in a checked sarong beside a carved gold door.

Two rows of lanterns lighting the stone steps up to the bridge.

A bronze sculpture on a plaza off Argyle Street, Mong Kok.

A lantern in a carved stone grotto.

A stone guardian with flowers behind its ear.

Lantern colours dissolving into the canal.

Lantern light doubled in the canal under a bridge at Shengjiaxu.

Round lanterns above a silk carp.

A pause among Madrid’s art, parks and bookstalls.

Lanterns painted with 囍, glowing above the crowd.

“Everything happens to everyone,” painted on a shopfront.

Double-happiness lanterns, close enough to touch.

“This is what a feminist looks like” — a mural at Fembooks.

A golden dome of lanterns, and its twin in the water.

A signpost in San Blas

A dark landscape painting in a gilt frame.

A pavilion made of light, sparks drifting around it.

Lanterns climbing the lane, one step of light at a time.

A summer walk between plane trees and old façades.

A stone monkey with a finger to its lips.

Paper lanterns climbing a narrow lane, orange and pale blue, into the dark.

Painted tiles and a black cat on a brick wall.

Broken Chair: three legs, and one splintered stump.

A patchwork of collage in an Icelandic artists’ exhibition.

The portico of the National Gallery.

Tile paintings with a cat, hung on a grid wall.

Lanterns hung at odd heights, like notes on a stave.

A crowd of phones in front of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

A blue lantern dragon floating on the canal.

A visitor photographing Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Cypresses.

A blue dragon lantern asleep on the dark water.

A quiet moment in front of a Van Gogh still life.

Magnolia over a white wall, held up in a Polaroid against the real thing.

The spiralling atrium ceiling of K11 MUSEA.

A visitor sketching in the galleries.

The street to Changmen, kept in a Polaroid on a grey spring day.

Fountains in the Place des Nations, Broken Chair beyond.

Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus on a red wall.

An old rainbow sign in spring light.

Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.

苏州, brushed onto a white wall at Algebra Café.

Two visitors leaning in to the Arnolfini Portrait.

苏州 written on a white wall, a red scooter parked beneath.

A pause among Madrid’s art, parks and bookstalls.

“We love this city so much” — a sign for Gusu.

“We love this city so much” — Gusu, on a pale sign.

A Catalan summer detail between the old city and the sea.

A painted hopscotch winding along the pavement.

The final light over Barcelona after a crowded day.

Gaudí’s Barcelona, where structure turns into ornament.

A Catalan summer detail between the old city and the sea.

The final light over Barcelona after a crowded day.

Gaudí’s Barcelona, where structure turns into ornament.

A Catalan summer detail between the old city and the sea.

Portraits crowding a green wall at the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

Poetry along the walls beneath Taipei Main Station.

A wall of old cameras at the V&A Photography Centre.

Poems on wooden boards along the fence of the Taipei Literature Base.

Poems on wooden boards along the fence of the Taipei Literature Base.

Millais’s Ophelia at Tate Britain.

Poems on wooden boards along the fence of the Taipei Literature Base.

Tate Britain carved in stone.

Columns and banner at Tate Britain.

A green figure standing in the rain on the South Bank.

PEACE in six languages, written in light.

A figure half-hidden in a falling curtain of water.

A gilded table clock behind glass at the Patek Philippe Museum.

Pocket watches laid open like small planets.

A gold pocket watch, holding the sky, the calendar and the hours in one hand.

A blue star chart inside a gold watch case.

Ptolemy's epicycles etched in steel at CERN.

The Jet d'Eau on a Polaroid: You can make art out of anything.

Two visitors on a bench at the Courtauld Gallery.

Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear at the Courtauld.

Looking down the spiral staircase at the Courtauld.

A gilded ceiling rising to a glass dome.

A pointillist park scene in a gilt frame.

Bare plum branches against the red wall of Wujiang's Confucian temple.

Branch shadows sliding across the red wall.

A carved round window set in the red wall of Wujiang's Confucian temple.

Plum blossom sketched across an empty blue sky.

Magnolia rising alone into the blue.

Qili Shantang — seven li of old street, written in brush on the wall.

One red camellia glowing in the shade at Tiger Hill.

Shantang Street in late light, red lanterns strung along the canal.

February orchids carpeting the ground at Tiger Hill.

Blossom spilling over a curved roof at the Master of the Nets Garden.

Camellias glimpsed through a lattice window at Tiger Hill.

An old brick pagoda above a garden wall.

A magnolia tree in full bloom over Yipu's roofline.

A single branch of plum, written across the sky.

February orchids, Mum's favourite, in the low spring light.

February orchids — Mum’s favourite flower.

Plum blossom on fine dark twigs, almost weightless.

Whitewashed gables and red lanterns along the water.

A cat asleep on a warm wall at Xiyuan Temple.

Rapeseed flowers by East Taihu Lake, a field of yellow.

Rapeseed standing tall against the spring sky.

Rapeseed in flower, the first yellow of spring.

Red lanterns and a stone bridge reflected in the water.

Washing at the canal steps in a red coat.

Fireworks bursting quietly in the night sky.

Pingjiang Road after rain: a lane where the water keeps the sky close.

Shantang Street: one bridge, then another, and the canal carrying the evening on.

The Twin Pagodas at Dinghui Temple, when the year begins to turn gold.

A small note from home, kept for the exhibition wall.

At the Master of the Nets Garden, the smallest view holds the whole season.

Shengjiaxu on Shangyuan night: lantern light learns the shape of water.

Yipu Garden, where a white wall makes room for a branch to speak.

The first full moon is never only above the roofs; it is also in the canal.

Yipu Garden keeps its green in the pauses between stone and shade.

Shiquan Street: the old city seen at walking pace.

Red ivy climbing a weathered garden wall, autumn written in a few lines.

Dinghui Temple’s Twin Pagodas, held in the quieter light of autumn.

Autumn pauses between the Twin Pagodas; even the air seems to keep still.

The angle of Xu Yang’s scroll Prosperous Suzhou: old Gusu roofs in front, the towers of Suzhou Industrial Park behind.

Yipu Garden: spring does not announce itself; it gathers in corners.

A Polaroid of the street to Changmen, the old gate tower waiting at its end.

The Twin Pagodas make a compass for the autumn streets.

Autumn’s last warm page, pressed into the city’s old stone.

A branch of wintersweet by the temple wall, blooming quietly in the cold.