Hong Kong Students Prize 2017

Although I grew up outside of Korea, growing up with the Korean nationality had an impact on me as I was constantly receiving pressure from society to have plastic surgery. I noticed that people on the streets looked identical to each other. Seeing so many advertisements of beauty enhancement products, surgical centres and beauty magazines all across Korea blew my mind. Through the use of Korean beauty magazines, I used photographs of Korean beauty celebrities to create a collage of the most ‘Beautiful’ version of myself using the ‘Best Qualities’ available. This is a self-portrait to portray South Korea’s depiction of ‘Beauty’. As can be seen from this chimera piece of art, the most perfect traits together do not create perfection, but rather monstrosity.

“01:00” was based on a news article documenting the severity of light and noise pollution in Hong Kong as a result of nightlife and technology. Influenced by Sarah Choo Jing’s photo composites, I photographed and collaged the different lights seen at night in a popular shopping district, Causeway Bay. In addition to pollution, the apps edited onto the phones show the fixation on social media in teenagers. This creates a multitude of distractions resulting in stress and sleeping disorders.

This piece was made with all my photographs that I have taken of Hong Kong during my 10 years of living here. I was inspired to create this piece to creatively express my perspective of what Hong Kong means to me as growing up and spending most of my teenage years here, as a Japanese girl living overseas, it has had a great impact on who I am as a person. This piece is a representation of what I think of this place. Within what seems to be captured as a negative for most people, crowded, rushed, fast-paced, how I found positivity within it, as a source of energy and enthusiasm. It shows my journey of how I discovered a way to enjoy the busy city of Hong Kong by taking in its energy, which has been portrayed with the movement of transportation rushing through. The idea of congestion and crowdedness is translated with a reference to a poster of a famous Pop Art artist, Andy Warhol who created artworks from mass produced products. Visually, it has been conveyed with repeated images of different transportation, almost as though they are rushing to get through. Other photographs of the skyscrapers, street signs, road signals, graffiti were taken from my home view or from locations close to my home, which makes it more significant to me as they are of my close surroundings and have precious memories with each photograph. Hong Kong to me is an energising, vibrant city that encourages me to continue moving forward in life, accept challenges and opportunities that come my way to enjoy life to the fullest. Although there are elements that can be overwhelming, it is a place that helped me improve most as a person.

Exploration of the Syrian Refugee Crisis; considering the irony of the Life Jacket which can save a life while fleeing home and the familiar, but cannot prepare for the awakening to a new life ahead as a Refugee in a Foreign Country. 

It is by virtue of light that anything can be observed. It is for this reason that light often functions symbolically to reveal the ‘truth’ in literature. However, light can also be reflected, refracted, and manipulated. I explore this alternative ‘truth’ in both works – perhaps as a reaction to how truth has recently become problematized. The work, titled Collidoscope, explores how the refraction and manipulation of light can create a collision between expectation and reality. Using holographic paper, acrylic paint, and two-tone sheer fabric, the work explores how light can transform the body. This is an interactive piece, in which the true nature of the work is only revealed as the viewer moves around it, seeing both herself and the environment reflected and distorted. The cloth itself functions as the proverbial veil, allowing multiple realities to collide. Because we don’t know whether the woman is changing into or from a kaleidoscopic state, and because the work changes as it is observed, the resulting ambiguity allows for a rich variety of interpretation

This was a self portrait that I did. This drawing shows that I am imagining myself as a kid and relieve from all the stress at school. I chose the setting of the beach because I like how it brings calmness. These brings out my personality as I am a calm and optimistic person.

I have always considered myself as a rather reserved person. Although there are people who I would consider as my ‘close friends’, I still tend to keep my feelings to myself. I was inspired by the term ‘gnossienne’, a term meaning ‘a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life’. I explored the relationship between myself and my inner emotions – how I present myself to others and how I truly am (or the side I only show to myself). This piece is divided into three stages: first the initial portrait, of which I painted myself in a passive posture with colours representing my different emotions – blue (sorrow and frustration) on the left which is kept to myself, while yellow (happiness) is applied on the right open area, an emotion I tend to shield my inner sorrow with. Several cuts are knifed through some parts of the canvas to display my anger in addition to the thicker layers of oil on my left cheek to imply the mask I tend to wear. Then, I invited two close friends to respond to this piece by adding and/or subtracting elements based on their interpretation of me in addition to their response towards my emotions with oil paint, cutter, needle & threads etc. In the third stage, I reacted to their response. One friend sewn the cut as a symbol of heal, something she always did. This influenced me to seal another cut as I had learned the importance of self-love. Their response also prompted me to emerge from my passiveness by revealing more anger through dark red drips that I usually hide, knowing that they will handle and tolerate my negativity with care. Overall, this is piece where I had the chance to discover and accept myself even more.

“Her Poker Face” is essentially a digital piece, painted over with acrylic and gouache paint, outlined with marker pen. It’s A3 in size, printed on card, then glued to a piece of foam core. FireAlpaca was the digital program used to create the painting. The background of the piece is essentially monochrome, as well as the bottom half. I wanted to show my audience there will always be two sides to a person, the person on the outside, who everyone sees, and the person on the inside, who they actually are and what they actually feel. I wanted to show this by using one type of person, a Queen. The Queen at the top of the card is what people see on the outside and what her people see, what she wants them to see. The Queen at the bottom represents the pressure of her position and how she actually feels on the inside. The hands grabbing and reaching for her is to symbolise many people wanting different things from her, having different expectations of her. The deformed spade and Q at the bottom of the card depicts her power crumbling and deteriorating. While creating “Her Poker Face”, I considered many different ways of better portraying my intention through the use of the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design. I used a strong sense of movement, from the top to the bottom. Emphasising queen above by painting her with lighter values and colours than the rest of the piece draws the eye there first. The vines then draw your attention lower towards the queen below, then to the hands grabbing for her. Restricting the top half to colour while the rest of the piece was monochrome was to have contrast between the queen above and the queen below.

My painting is an anti-war statement: we can never ignore the tumultuous outcomes of war – our very own creation. Human beings tackle issues between nations with wars, and at the same time we create irreversible scars that destroy all good things in life. With each step along the path towards economic development, we plough more resources into military spending without a thought for the psychologically and physically harm we inflict on each other.

Everyone has a everyday scene that they forgot and put behind their busy lives. Going home is the route we most often go on but most of the time, we hurry ourselves overlooking the peace and beauty we ought to treasure in our lives. Like a reflection of our daily lives, we look towards the soothing past of bright memories to sooth ourselves even though we slowly walk towards unknown destinations.

Opening depicts an atmospheric forgotten region of this city Hong Kong. Often depicted as a modern glass city Hong Kong has numerous small alleyways where one can be alone. In such a busy city it is possible to feel isolated and alone even when you are surrounded by many people.

It is incredibly difficult nowadays to be able to understand the importance of our community and the way each individual plays a role in society. Each person painted here represents a story of themselves, their lives and their responsibilities. Perhaps these stories will never be told; however, I have painted them in a way so that they are linked together, through overlapping. These subtle overlaps convey an important message which is that no matter how different our lives are, whether through poverty, through selfishness, through self-gain, our actions can and will affect one another – our responsibilities are shared. Another aspect of this painting is the old generation portrayed here. They symbolize independence and pride. Although they are old and are seen as poor; they all hold determination and a positive spirit. Why? Because they strive through the endless hours of hard effort to gain their pride, needless to depend on others’ sympathy. Only that way, will they feel content in their heart. Thus having a cheerful man in contrast with the others to signify this idea.

Digital imaging can be highly variable, but it can never be viewed separately from its carrier. Whether on paper, electronic screen, projector, or combination with other materials, carriers of the digital imaging always influence the work. ​Knowing that digital images can be constantly deconstructed and replicated, with paper handling, I create this series of works “Paper Towns”. With shooting, post-production technology, paper printing, hand-folded, post-production technology, paper printing, this process includes the concepts of manual to digital technology and plane to solid.

Within 3 years, there are 71 students commit suicide and the number is constantly increasing, all claim that the main reason is because of academic pressure. I believe that the current education, social expectation, parenting style of teaching children to encounter difficulties and more should be criticised. However, as a student who will take the final exam this year, I think the society now need more positivity rather than discouragement. Thus, inspired by Choi Mi Kyung (Ensee), I created a portrait depicting myself in my own uniform studying or sitting for an exam, illustrates how HK students work hard to achieve better grades and high-income professions, even they might be talent in other aspects. The forgotten dreams and ideals are represented by various natural elements but caged in a rib cage.   Besides, the brutality of the society and education system which is the major reason for the increasing number of students’ death is symbolized by the morbidly torn back. However, I personally think that the educational system could not be changed in an instance. For now, the only thing we can change to improve the situation is our attitude. Staying positive is vital to prevent more tragedy happens, shown by the sharp bright color scheme of the inner part of the student. This contrast with the depressing dark blue background, indicating the student ‘s depressing thought about their future.   Moreover, the birds are drawn in a more realistic way to emphasize the idea of breaking social expectation. Getting low marks or failing exam is acceptable, those numbers cannot really define us. There are different talents, uniqueness, passion and more within us, it is not worthy to just give up or end our lives without truly understanding ourselves.

‘Replicants’ is revealing the society that everyone, especially students, is bounded by a lot of rules and expectations. We were trained to follow these rules and meet the society’s definition of ‘success’. Students are like captive animals, trapped by the expectations of the society, that urges them to become ‘successful’, so everyone followed the rules like a tame rabbit. We hide our dreams and become a grown up, but is that what we really want? The work was first inspired by the student serial suicide incident of Hong Kong during 2016. I try to illustrate the force of resistance through my work, to tell the struggles of Hong Kong students and to ask a question: Should we follow all these expectations and give up all our dreams, or should we try to fight for what we want?

This set of work depicts my impression on the sound of dripping water, burning fire, blowing breeze and breath of my own. Different patterns are made by piercings with a tiny pin on tracing paper. The delicate patterns on the translucent surface, although hardly visible at a distance, when come up close, they remind us of the beauty of trivial things that we often overlook.

Traditional Chinese landscape painting focus on ” Regarding Nature as One’s Teacher Outside and Thinking Spirit as One s Origin Inside “, often through personal travel or seclusion to feel the relationship between nature and man. But it is difficult for us to achieve these level as a modern citizen, so I tried to use my way to reinterpret the Chinese Shan Shui painting, using a long painting process to capture my instant travel experience. I traveled through the bus, and recorded the sight (Ex-Cha Kwo Ling Kaolin Mine) at every moment before entering the Eastern Harbour Crossing, reinterpreting its changes and my curiosity and admiration for the scene. I hope the viewers can put down their phone, look at our city, you will find a lot of amazing scene and learn to appreciate the nature even by the instant travel on bus. *(My work is actually a set of three painting as i would like to present the window scene on bus, but as i can only submit one painting, so i chose one of them to join the competition. So i have uploaded two image, one is the whole set of painting one is the painting that i would used to join the competition.)

Inspired by classicism, I combined New Zealand and Chinese elements while creating this landscape piece to express the beauty of Aotearoa, where I lived for two and a half years, and the beauty of Chinese culture. A tui bird, the representation of New Zealand, is standing in the middle of the landscape, as if it is recalling the beautiful memories buried in the history of New Zealand. The audience can imagine how the tweets of a tui bird echoes in the empty mountains and valleys with the silent movement of the lakes and seas in the background. Through the media of oil painting, I used personification to depict myself as a little tui, singing with the rhythms of the Guqin (one of the most ancient Chinese instruments), singing for freedom, and singing in silence.

I saw many different age, different career, different nationality citizens in MTR train struggling in their live. I am living at Tung Chung and always using such transport train to City or School. I observed that all citizens of Hong Kong were unhappy and under their different life problems. I want to use my canvas to express the feeling and observation of mine from them. I think we should realize the problems and face them. Bless all our citizens and our mother town.

The human experience is one of a vast journey across time and space, with each individual’s journey touching and affecting those of the people who surround them. The exhibition this piece is presented in has the theme “Journeys”, serving to illustrate each aspect of a human’s travels through life, whether it be pure experiences or the individuals we interact with. “Uniform” ties more specifically to my personal journey as both a UK national and an individual born and raised in Hong Kong. ‘Third-culture kids’ like me are becoming an increasingly existent phenomenon in today’s globalised society, however although these children frequently take their adopted country as their ‘home’, they also never fully ‘fit’ in their society. Taking myself as an example, my language and features mark me as an outsider in my own city, and I am often treated as merely a tourist or naïve expat child. “Uniform” reflects this in-limbo existence of third-culture kids through the single red taxi standing at odds with the other white ones. I constructed the box that surrounds the rows of Hong Kong taxis, reminiscent of the hectic and busy Hong Kong lifestyle, out of found materials on a beach near my house. These local materials, as well as the red spray paint with “Hong Kong”, “香港”, and a transient airplane symbolise Hong Kong’s environment. The taxis are representative of Hong Kong people, including me and other third-culture kids, travelling the same direction on our journeys in this incredible city. However, the red taxi stands out as different, and will always be treated as so.