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Underneath the Glaze

Seeing beyond the layers and the glaze meets the moment of choice

Magdalena

6/21/2026

Dear art lovers and introspection lovers,

Judy is a Taiwanese-American painter who has made Hong Kong her home.

A local artist painting about local topics, social and cultural observations. Her paintings reflect on heritage, culture, identity, and transformation.Judy Gee was so kind to let us understand her world during her spring exhibition.

This essay is of conversational nature, remaining true in nature to our couple of dialogues with Judy Gee, a painter rediscovering life, patterns in life and in our society, through the lenses of many cultures we live in. Judy reveals to us that she sees her paintings as questions, and that art is indeed about connection and that behind all the themes, the patterns that we try to inquire about, art ultimately transcends culture.

We will find so many introspections about Judy’s process as an artist and general observations about the cultures that form us till the questions about ourselves now, what can we uncover, what layers can we peel off and reach our essence. Among the key words transpiring is transformation, temptation, choice, labels. Taking all that apart, who are we inside?Judy asks all of us really. The reflections on the glaze of the intriguing object of the exhibition, the delicious “donut”, lead us to how our very identity melts.

“What is left once we strip all that away? We have to keep asking?”

We would never see a donut again that same way. An object of desire, an object offering a fleeting moment of satisfaction. A very tempting object.

We can now see our connections with art, culture, language, though a new perspective altogether and keep asking, how do we make a choice to transform our lives.

“So, while you’re here and you are interacting with everybody, and your art again, also as an observer, not as a painter, you are already forming something, and like—like you mentioned, you know, there is no— there is no beginning and there is no end, whatever we are doing as artists, we are always creating something, we have some idea. There is a seed and there is this kind of bridge from our idea to how we are going to deliver—deliver in the sense how we are going to actually manifest it into a real, you know, artwork and start working on it, and I think that’s a different kind of perseverance that is needed to do that and a lot of patience as well, I think.”

I concluded that we all have the capacity for us to—to be reflexive about that, but also to choose joy at the end of the day, and, you know, not to feel so much hardship about that, no matter where our deep dive into the nature of our human nature takes us.

Thank you so much for taking the time to hear us out and observe and take in Judy’s insights.Please continue to read the full interview under the art form, with the stunning art pieces by Judy on the presentation below while listening to our audio and Judy’s calming voice.

Kindest wishes with many more kind voices, Maggie

Download the Interview
Magdalena’s Substack