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The founder of Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation channels decades of stage energy into bold, spiritually charged paintings — and collectors are taking notice.
Words: P.Ramakrishnan
Images: Courtesy of the Artist.
As the dust settles after the whirlwind of Hong Kong’s art fairs last week — Art Central, Art Basel, and Edible Art — where scale, spectacle, celebrity on occasion eclipses substance, it was a pleasure to run into Lindsey McAlister as she stood by her canvas, a quiet force of convergence. A prominent figure in the city’s theatre scene for more than three decades — founder of the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation, OBE recipient, and tireless champion of youth creativity — the young at art McAlister has, in recent years, unfurled a parallel life as a visual artist.
At 65, she playfully describes herself as an “older emerging artist,” a label she wears with defiant relish. Her paintings, alive with rhythmic colour, layered texture, and an almost performative pulse, translate the electricity of the stage into canvas.
Last week, at Art Central 2026, exhibiting with The Spectacle Group, McAlister found the fair’s energy particularly resonant. “It’s been an incredibly energising week… the best Art Central experience I’ve had,” she says. “This is my second year and I felt more relaxed! The fair had a real buzz, and being there with The Spectacle Group gave my work a beautiful platform to be seen, talked about and properly engaged with.” Collectors, curators, and visitors responded with striking enthusiasm.
Many lingered before her canvases, sensing the theatre in the paint. “People were very interested in the way my performing arts background feeds into the paintings,” McAlister notes, “how stage energy, movement and emotion are translated into colour, rhythm and texture on canvas.” Visitors often remarked that they could “feel” that live energy emanating from the work. Several collectors spoke of a deeper pull: “a sense of connection and ‘divine’ energy in the pieces, that idea of something larger linking all living things.”
For McAlister, the most profound validation came from those who left feeling transformed. “The most meaningful feedback came from visitors who said they felt uplifted after spending time with the work – that’s exactly the kind of impact I hope my practice can have.”
McAlister never abandoned theatre; she simply reopened a long-dormant channel. Trained at art school more than 40 years ago, she set painting aside as life filled with directing, youth work, and the beautiful chaos of productions. Then came a quiet pivot. “Two years ago, when I got Covid and was stuck at home, bored and restless, I picked up a paintbrush almost on a whim… and the moment I started, I remembered how much it made my heart sing!”
She describes the shift not as reinvention but reconnection. “Theatre will always be something I create; it’s like breathing for me. It was more like discovering a second creative channel that runs alongside it.” Now the practices nourish each other: stage movement and emotional storytelling surge onto the canvas in bold acrylic layers. Her technique favours speed and intuition. “My works are primarily acrylic on canvas rather than oil,” she explains. “Acrylic really suits my spontaneous way of working (and I am really impatient… so I need something that dries fast!). It lets me move quickly, layer intuitively!”
She works in a former classroom at “The Kungers,” a refurbished school-turned-community space in Sai Kung, where large-scale pieces can breathe and wait their turn for exhibition.
McAlister’s visual language draws from a rich lineage. Gustav Klimt remains a lodestar for his opulent patterning and emotional depth. “I’m drawn to his rich use of pattern, ornament and repeated motifs, and the way he balances decorative beauty with deep emotional intensity.” The Pop Art movement supplies bold colour and graphic immediacy, while Wassily Kandinsky and Abstract Expressionism shape her belief in colour and form as carriers of spiritual vibration — echoing her fascination with an unseen “divine energy” that binds all living things.
A more immediate inspiration is contemporary Australian artist Naomi Hobson, whose work she encountered in person at Art Central with Rebecca Hossack Gallery. “I’m deeply inspired by how clearly her culture, land and community flow through her work.”
In personal taste, McAlister gravitates toward art that registers viscerally. “I’m drawn to art that feels alive in my body first — bold, bright colour, graphic impact and a sense of movement or performance.” She respects but struggles to connect with “very cold, ultra-minimal or purely cerebral contemporary work where I need to read a long text to feel anything. My taste leans toward art you feel in your gut and heart first and only analyse afterwards.”
The strong current balancing her worlds requires no rigid timetable. Theatre — especially the forthcoming YAF musical Falling Awake, about a teenage girl who escapes online bullying by slipping into a surreal “Innerverse” — runs on structure: call times, deadlines, the machinery of production. When she has precious time off, painting occupies the cracks, instinctive and free. “It doesn’t feel like juggling, they definitely feed each other, but in practice it’s more like two tides coming in and out than a neatly planned timetable.”
Her representation with The Spectacle Group and gallerist Jaime Lau feels like an artistic homecoming. After returning to painting, McAlister methodically emailed Hong Kong galleries for months. “I basically wore a few of them down until they replied and Jaime was the person I met who truly saw me, not just as an artist but as a human. We connected deeply. Resilience and persistence really paid off.”
She contrasts Art Central’s approachable buzz with the more austere atmosphere of Art Basel. Edible Art, which she attended, delighted her with its playful blurring of visual art, food, and experience. As 2026 unfolds, McAlister embraces expansion with characteristic verve. Falling Awake demands focus, yet fuels the storytelling impulse at her core. In visual art, she eyes new markets with fearless momentum: a group show in Manila this June, conversations with galleries in Paris and New York, and ambitions for London representation.
“At 65, as an ‘older’ emerging artist, I honestly feel like that’s my USP, I have lived experience, stamina and zero interest in playing small, and I’m quite committed to exploiting that, in the best possible way, in the years ahead! I’m planning on living to at least 100 so I have still loads of time. Ha!”
McAlister’s practice refuses diminishment, as her canvases do not merely depict energy — they channel it, offering viewers a visceral reminder that art, like theatre, can awaken something larger than the self. In Hong Kong’s crowded cultural arena, that transmission feels both rare and urgently needed. As a multi-hyphenate behind the scenes, McAlister hasn't left the stage, her new work's just taken centre stage.
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