A woman looks at herself in the glass of a window, almost merging with her own reflection…Lovers embrace on a lawn. There's a man standing under the neon lights…
Illustrator Chihoi knows how to create his characters, and he does so with absolute intensity: the inhabitants of his work experience solitude and urban chaos, soft bodies that touch and tell whispered tales of intimacy. In his architectural blacks and whites and vibrant oil paintings, they simultaneously become protagonists and extras in limitless landscapes.
On the occasion of the 28th edition of the Far East Film Festival, the exhibition titled I'm with My Saint, curated by Bologna-based publishing house and cultural association Canicola, comes to the city. The Visionario Cinema will be hosting the exhibition from the 25th of April to the 24th of May (official opening: April 24th at 5:00 PM), immersing the public in Chihoi's captivating universe through original drawings, books and screenings. The illustrator will also be the guest of honour at the Opening on the 24th of April.
I'm with My Saint is a collection of 11 short stories - a journey that lifts the veil of everyday life and leads the viewer into a dreamlike world: the networks of people and loves, disappearances and surreal atmospheres that Chihoi creates, which blur reality and mystery.
Born in Hong Kong in 1977, Chihoi is not an artist by training but holds a degree in Science from a Chinese university. Yet the lure of canvas and comics was too strong and in 1996 he began publishing as a self-taught artist, breaking down international barriers and establishing himself as one of the leading exponents of the independent Chinese-language scene. He founded the Springrollll collective/magazine, which became a cult phenomenon in his native Hong Kong, but Hong Kong wasn't the only city to recognise his genius. His comics have been published in several international anthologies, such as "Orang" (Germany), "Canicola" (Italy), "Strapazin" (Switzerland), "Sai Comics" (Korea), "Spoutnik" (Canada), "Forresten" (Norway), and "Lagon revue" (France). His most notable books include Library & I'm with my Saint (2018), Still Life (2003), Hijacking – Comic Hong Kong Literature (2007), and The Train (2007). As well as publishing in the magazine of the same name, with Canicola he also created “Il Treno” (2008), which contains the story "The Carousel" by writer Hung Hung.
Canicola and Far East Film have been working side by side since 2010, and organising exhibitions of Asian artists for just as long. Among them, we can highlight the solo exhibitions of Yan Cong (Visionario Cinema, 2010) and Yuichi Yokoyama (Cinema Visionario, 2011), the group exhibition Isole cinesi (Visionario Cinema, 2012), the tribute exhibition to Yoshiharu Tsuge (Cinema Visionario, 2017), the solo exhibitions of Ancco (Museo di Casa Cavazzini, 2018) and Zuo Ma (Museo di Casa Cavazzini, 2019), and the exhibition dedicated to Shigeru Mizuki (Museo di Casa Cavazzini, 2025), the first in Italy and the second in Europe celebrating one of the greatest authors of Japanese sequential art.