Over the course of a five-decade profession, Fay used large-scale sculpture to blur the strains between fantasy and actuality, drawing from his familial Chinese language heritage and the Western influences that formed his upbringing. He explored ideas referring to horticulture, power circulation, and native mythology by imaginative world-building and vibrant backyard and jungle installations that integrated his private each day observations, documented in a group of discovered objects that included fruits, seeds, and bones.
Born in Shanghai in 1943 to artist mother and father, Fay was raised in Hong Kong, the place he and his household moved amid the rise of Mao Zedong’s regime in China. His mom taught him the strategy of papier-mâche, which set the stage for what would later change into one in every of his signature mediums. Fay additionally cited the surrealist sculptures of Chinese language folklore in Hong Kong’s now-defunct Tiger Balm Backyard as inspiration for his later set up works in a 2022 interview with ArtAsiaPacific.
A number of of Ming Fay’s backyard sculptures, which drew from his each day observations and folklore (courtesy the Property of Ming Fay)
“The garden has remained a throughline of my entire artistic career. I see the concept of a garden as a symbol of abundance, paradise, and the location for the ultimate, desirable state of being,” he informed the publication.
At 18 years outdated, Fay moved to america, embarking on a two-week-long boat voyage to review on the Columbus School of Artwork and Design, the place he obtained a full scholarship. Pushed by an curiosity in sculpture, he in the end transferred to the Kansas Metropolis Artwork Institute, the place he earned a Bachelor of High quality Arts diploma, and later obtained his Grasp of High quality Arts diploma from the College of California, Santa Barbara.
“He was interested in the symbolism — in Chinese culture, pears represent prosperity, oranges represent good luck, and cherries represent love,” Parker Fay defined. “But as a sculptor, he was also interested in the shape, form, texture, and color.”
Ming Fay exiting the New York Metropolis subway with a chili pepper sculpture (courtesy the Property of Ming Fay)
Epoxy Artwork Group members (from left to proper) Eric Chan, Jerry Kwan, Bing Lee, Kwok Manho, Hsieh Lifa, Ming Fay, and Kang Lok Chung (courtesy the Property of Ming Fay)
Along with his lively participation in Decrease Manhattan’s arts group, Fay had a prolonged profession as an arts educator, instructing sculpture at numerous establishments together with William Paterson College and the Maryland Institute School of Artwork (MICA) till he retired in 2016.
“Ming was more than an artist-in-residence, more than my mentor. He was a witness, a guide, a keeper of wisdom who saw the value in my work and urged me to keep digging, to unearth what lay beneath the surface,” wrote the artist and MICA alumnus Desmond Seashore in an Instagram publish in tribute to the late artist.
Fay’s works are held in non-public and public collections throughout the globe, together with the Brooklyn Museum, New Museum, Taipei High quality Artwork Museum, and the Hong Kong Museum of Artwork. It can be on everlasting show in a number of public websites throughout america, such because the Delancey-Essex Road subway station in Manhattan, residence to his glass fish mosaic “Shad Crossing, Delancey Orchard” (2004), and the doorway to PS7 in Elmhurst Queens, adorned by his bronze leaf gate sculpture “Leaf Gate, Keys in Flight, Seed of Elm, The Spirit of the Elm, and Elm in Bloom Sprouting Buds” (1995).
Ming Fay, “Shad Crossing” (2004) on the Delancey Road/Essex Road subway station (courtesy the Property of Ming Fay)
This spring, 100 of Fay’s sculptures will go on show as a part of the main retrospective Ming Fay: Fringe of the Backyard, which opens on June 26 at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Fay is survived by his son, his sister Mun Fay, and his associate Bian Hong.
Ming Fay, “Left Eye” (1998)(© Ming Fay, photograph by and courtesy the Brooklyn Museum)
