Seven artworks by different contemporary artists went under the hammer last week at a gala event hosted by Sotheby's to raise funds for the Nature Conservancy (TNC), the world's biggest non-profit environmental organization which finds sustainable solutions to protect the planet's land and water.

"People depend on nature for a more secure future," said Charles Bedford, TNC's regional managing director in Asia Pacific. "They need water, air, they need food, and they need nature to provide those things, and that's what we're really all about."

The funds raised at last week's gala evening, themed "A night of nature, art and wine", will all go to supporting environmental conservation in the Asia-Pacific region, he said.

The nature-themed works were donated by five emerging artists from the Chinese mainland - Yang Yongliang, Zhou Li, Shi Zhiying, Xue Feng and Xue Song, as well as Lee Bae from Korea and the Chilean artist Fernando Prats.

Lee Bae's Issu de Feu, or outcome of fire, was one of the smaller pieces that held its own among the bigger works for its mesmerizing tactility and changing shimmering effects, which shows different combinations of silver and gray shades from different angles. The work is made from layers of charcoal, an organic material made from the remains of burnt wood and a material the artist worked with exclusively for more than 20 years, starting from the late 1990s.

"This single medium quickly became very central to the aesthetic and philosophy in his art," explains Shea Lam, specialist in Sotheby's contemporary art department. "He sees the work as blurring the distinction between painting, sculpture and drawing."

La Bleu J'adore No 2 by Hunan-born artist Zhou Li is an abstract and elegantly sensual work inspired by nature and the artist's time in Paris. Lam describes Zhou as "one of the up and coming artists working between figuration and abstraction."

Without doubt, the work most closely aligned to the natural world was Affatus No 1 by Fernando Prats who represented Chile at the 54th Venice Biennale held in 2011, and one of a series of his nature paintings shown at Puerta Roja gallery in Hong Kong last year. The large piece was created through a complex process at Asia Society Hong Kong Centre and captures the rhythmic wing movements of birds, filling the space on one of the artist's trademark smoked screens. The canvas seems almost mobile, filled with bird shapes and wingspans. "It may seem like brushstrokes on canvas, but actually these are imprints of the flapping of the bird's wings," explains Lam.

The influence of the natural world on art has persisted throughout the ages, and as climate change makes it presence ever more felt - particularly in Asia, where TNC works in 19 countries - using art to raise funds to protect nature has the appeal of a karmic payback.

In Hong Kong, where TNC has its regional headquarters, one of the organization's major projects is rebuilding oyster reefs in the Deep Bay area. Oysters are very important to cleaning the water and bringing back diversity, explains Azmar Sukandar, director of strategic communication and marketing for the TNC in Asia Pacific. "We're working closely with the oyster farming community there," she says, adding that the environmental work being carried out supports a 700-year-old industry in Hong Kong.

(HK Edition 03/29/2019 page10)