CREDITS:
Illustrated portrait of Cary Kwok by Maria Chen
ALL WORKS:
© Cary Kwok. Courtesy the artist and Herald St, London
1. Dream of the Wet Chamber 2018
Ink and acrylic on paper on paper, artist’s frame
⌀ 32.5 x 3.6 cm / ⌀ 12.8 x 1.4 in
Photo by Andy Keate
2. Am I Turning You On 2020
Acrylic and ink on paper, artist’s frame
19.7 x 19.7 x 3.8 cm / 7.8 x 7.8 x 1.5 in
Photo by Andy Keate
3. One Cigarette in An Ashtray 2022
Acrylic and ink on paper, artist’s frame
42.3 x 33 x 4.5 cm / 16.7 x 13 x 1.8 in, framed
Photo by Andy Keate
4. Till the End of Time 2022
Acrylic and ink on paper, artist’s frame
42.3 x 33 x 4.5 cm / 16.7 x 13 x 1.8 in, framed
Photo by Andy Keate
5. One Cigarette in an Ashtray - Chapter 2 2023
Acrylic and ink on paper, artist’s frame 42 x 32.6 x 4.5 cm / 16.5 x 12.8 x 1.8 in, framed
Photo by Andy Keate
6. Charm 2023
Acrylic, ink and (24k) gold leaf on paper, artist’s frame
29.6 x 23.6 x 4.5 cm / 11.7 x 9.3 x 1.8 in, framed
Photo by Jackson White
7. Law of Desire 2023
Acrylic and ink on paper, artist’s frame
38.2 x 29.5 x 4.5 cm / 15 x 11.6 x 1.8 in, framed
Photo by Jackson White
8. Sit For a While 2024
Acrylic and ink on paper
29.7 x 21 cm / 11.7 x 8.3 in, unframed
36.8 x 28.2 x 4 cm / 14.5 x 11.1 x 1.6 in, framed
Photo by Jackson White
Cary Kwok, a London-based artist, is known for his intricate ballpoint pen drawings at the start of his career. Born in Hong Kong, he relocated to London in the mid-90s and graduated from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, earning both a BA and an MA in Fashion Design. Kwok's art revolves around a fascination with fashion, period costumes, footwear, architecture and sexuality. His subjects range from explicit humorous erotica to still life and portraiture. Represented by Herald St in London, Kwok has exhibited internationally in cities like New York, Miami, Tokyo, Geneva, and Zurich, showcasing his work at esteemed venues such as Galerie Emanuel Perrotin, FLAG Art Foundation, Tate Britain, and ICA London.
We caught up with him on his experience moving from Hong Kong to the UK, pursuing contemporary art after fashion studies, and his forthcoming work at Art Basel Hong Kong.
CNTRFLD. You are currently preparing for Art Basel. How is that process going? Can you provide insights into what we can expect?
CK. It’s going very well. I’ve been chained to my desk for months making the work. I can get distracted sometimes, but once I’ve got myself into the work rhythm I like to keep going so I often stay up working all night. My new work is similar to my solo show at Herald St | Museum St in May 2023. I’d say it’s romantic, sentimental, and intimate, with a sense of nostalgia. It’s mostly still-life paintings, and sometimes you see parts of the protagonists, maybe a reflection of an eye in a mirror or a lipstick print on a cup, giving viewers a narrative of a chain of events. I’ve always been inspired by cinema – I am fascinated by camera movements and shots, and their power to carry a story, especially in films with great cinematography. I want to tell stories through my paintings as if they were movie stills. The negative spaces and the absence of people in some of my works can still suggest the presence and the state of mind of the protagonists. For this new series, I’ve returned to my all-time love of period fashion. I’ve been looking at fashion magazine editorial shoots, films, and interiors from the 1980s for inspiration, and bringing in elements from this decade more subtly than in my previous work.
CNTRFLD. Can you share any specific artists, movements, or cultural influences that have played a significant role in shaping your artistic style and vision?
CK. There are so many. I’m a very visual person, and I find inspiration and beauty in a lot of things. When I see a piece of art or a film, or I hear a song, more than anything I want to remember and capture the feeling of the moment. We grow and change all the time – five years ago I might’ve liked something, and now I can still appreciate it but the passion might not be there anymore.
John Singer Sargent’s paintings are so beautiful; the light, shadows, the compositions, how he captured his sitters’ emotions and sensuality. Casper David Friedrich’s landscapes are simply otherworldly and romantic, with contrasting light and shadows…the compositions really transport you to his world. I often flirt with the idea of painting landscapes. I love Pedro Almodóvar’s films. The stories are beautifully told with sensational visuals that are incredibly gripping. Even if, like me, you don’t speak Spanish, you get dragged right into the stories even if you’re not reading the subtitles. And I love Studio Ghibli. Kiki's Delivery Service is one of my all-time favourite films – its storytelling and the world they created are so incredible. The city is so beautiful, and I wish it were real.
CNTRFLD. We notice the concept of sexuality plays a large role in your work. Can you expand on this?
CK. Lately, I’ve been steering myself away from my previous more sexually explicit work, which was injected with a sense of humour. I like to create beautiful imagery that tells a story and amuses me, and I hope it makes my audience laugh too. Humour is important to me – it brings people together and it’s what I bond with my friends over.
I talk to friends about sex and sexuality, often in light-hearted ways, and my work reflects that sometimes. My recent work still has a subtle sensuality to it, but without being overtly sexual.
CNTRFLD. Can you share the materials you've chosen for your art and elaborate on how you began experimenting with these materials and how they contribute to your creative process? Are there any new or unconventional mediums you've been exploring recently, and what draws you to experiment with them?
CK. At the beginning of my career, the biro pen was my main medium. I’ve used it since I was a child. It renders beautifully, and you can draw amazing details. I still use it sometimes, but I grew to love the versatility of acrylic paint. My mediums are very conventional – I’ve just developed my skills to paint on paper over the years. I’d say I’m a very detail-oriented painter – I am very fussy with details, though I admire artists who are so free with their paintbrushes and create magnificent paintings.
CNTRFLD. Your work encompasses both figurative art and the re-creation of known objects. How do you determine the approach for a new piece, and what challenges do each of these styles present?
CK. I make things that are evocative, at least to me, and which I hope will resonate with others. I’ve always been fascinated by things, objects, the man-made environment, traces that people leave behind that can tell stories. How an object that was once loved and treasured by someone can be seen by someone else in a completely different light. How a space that was once lived in and filled with joy, happiness, fights, and arguments, floods you with emptiness when you’ve packed up to leave, and you look back at the empty space that was once filled with stuff, just before you close the door behind you for the last time. I can only achieve the message I want to get across through figurative art, drawing inspiration from our universe. I want to depict things accurately as they are, even if those things come from my imagination or fantasies. I’ve always been very meticulous, but not necessarily realistic. I sometimes try to free up my way of painting but my brain won’t let me. I admire artists who can do this. A couple of brushstrokes and you know exactly what they’ve painted – it’s really quite beautiful.
CNTRFLD. How do you navigate the balance between staying true to your artistic vision and adapting to the evolving trends and demands of the contemporary art scene?
CK. I have never cared about trends. I have no idea what these trends are, perhaps because I’m too much in my own world to know what’s happening out there. It’s like with clothes. As much as I can appreciate what fashion designers send down the catwalks, I always wear what I think suits me. The latest things other people are wearing have no effect on how I like to dress. It’s the same with my art. Yet at the same time, I’m fascinated by past fashion and art trends, maybe up until about the late 1990s, and my work often references art / fashion / architectural movements of the past like Art Deco and Postmodernism.
CNTRFLD. Can you discuss any memorable or challenging experiences you've had in exhibiting your work? How do exhibitions contribute to the evolution of your artistic practice? How do you assess the audience's reaction to your work, and how does this feedback influence your future creations?
CK. I’d be lying if I said that the audience’s reaction doesn’t influence me in any way. I never set out to shock people with my previous more erotic work, as some people have suggested. I make art that amuses me or is personal to me, and that hopefully also evokes an emotional response from my audience. When I show my humorous erotic stuff, I love it when the viewer gets my humour and laughs.
My recent work is more sentimental. It’s still very nostalgic and erotic, but not in an explicit manner. I’d like to be able to transport the viewers into that world, to those scenes. Our empathy allows us to extract emotions from our experiences when we see something that moves us. I’ve always been an emotional person. I love my comedy, I joke about and say silly things with friends, yet I’m very sentimental. Lately, I’m tapping into my romantic side. Perhaps I want to take you back to that moment when you said goodbye to someone you’re in love with after the first time you were intimate together, or a little thing you do with the person you love, or that night you sat by yourself with a drink reminiscing, or the moment you thought you saw a sign that the universe was trying to send you a message. Is it indulgent?
CNTRFLD. Collaboration is increasingly common in the art world. Have you collaborated with other artists or professionals from different fields, and how has that impacted your creative process?
CK. As an artist, I have collaborated with department stores and other artists before. The Hong Kong department store Lane Crawford invited me to design a display for their new Beijing branch some years ago. I’m extremely grateful to have had the experience and very honoured that I had the opportunity to work with such an amazing store. I also designed some gift cards for them, which was great fun.
I also paired up a few years ago with a fellow artist, Djordje Ozbolt, to create a couple of drawings for Soho House. I think the drawings are now in Soho House Rome. We spent a few days painting and drinking in his studio. It’s always great fun hanging out with Djordje and he’s an amazing artist. I love his work. I think when you collaborate with someone as an artist, you each need to maintain your individual vision without clashing too much, but sometimes a clash can also be beautiful.
CNTRFLD. Share with us details about your childhood and discuss how these early experiences influenced your artistic journey. Additionally, could you delve into your early experiences with art and how they shaped your decision to become an artist?
CK. I was quite an introvert as a child. I often kept to myself because I felt misunderstood by people around me, especially growing up in Hong Kong. I always felt different, and I never developed an outgoing personality in the culture I grew up in. Also, I didn’t develop the communication skills to express myself as well as some of my peers, so I bottled my thoughts up a lot. I felt that the way I could best express myself was through drawing. My school books were covered in my cartoons and I used to love giving celebrities in magazines funny makeovers. That was my entertainment, and it was a lot of fun. I’m an only child so I learned to amuse myself. When my aunts used to babysit me, they would just give me a pen and paper. I'd sit there and draw for hours as they played mahjong. Maybe that helped me develop my drawing skills.
My mother once said something quite profound to me as a child that helped me a great deal. I was drawing something, I don’t remember what it was, and I included all the things I saw in front of me. She looked at it and asked what this object I had put in the foreground was, and I said it was the back of a chair. She responded, ‘It’s not a photograph. You can decide what to put in or what to take out. Just because something is in front of you, it doesn’t mean you have to include it.’ That, to me as a kid, was a significant turning point. I learned the magic of editing at that moment. Creativity has no bounds. You create your narratives in your storytelling.
CNTRFLD. You pursued both a fashion BA and MA in London. After studying fashion, what motivated your transition to visual arts, and how has this shift impacted your life and work?
CK. I always thought I’d become a fashion designer. I have a love for clothes and styles. And these things that are made of fabric can transform people. It’s magical! But I’ve never really cared too much about the glamour side of fashion. I realised I wasn’t really cut out for the fashion world – I guess I just didn’t have the personality for it.
I’ve always loved to paint and draw, but I became an artist by accident. A friend introduced me to my incredibly handsome gallerist Nicky and suggested he should check out my work. I actually knew Nicky from going out. He was just starting out as a gallerist with Millers Terrace, before Herald St moved to Herald Street. I think he liked my stuff, and that’s how our professional relationship began.
CNTRFLD. Why have you chosen London as your base for living and working? How does the city inspire your work, and what are the differences in living as an artist in London compared to Hong Kong, where you grew up?
Ck. I grew up in Hong Kong when it was a British colony. English was taught at school and British pop culture was very accessible. It wasn’t popular among local kids, but it was there if you looked. I used to read British magazines like Smash Hits, and later i-D and the Face. To me, studying fashion in London was an aspiration. I loved the creativity, youthfulness, and rebelliousness of London fashion back in those days. I also loved period fashion. I watched a lot of English period dramas as a teenager. All those elements kind of formed my impression of England and my longing for London before I moved here, but I had an idea of what London was like. As I said, British things were very accessible. I found a book on the fashion of the Swinging 60s in an old bookshop, and that just blew my mind. I wanted to see it for myself.
I decided I would come to London to study fashion, and I got myself into Central St Martins. London was exactly how I imagined it. I would say individuality back in 90s London was more celebrated. People respected and encouraged creativity. Things could feel a little amateurish at times, but that was the beauty of it, and that quality also nurtures creative minds. I fell in love with the culture and its people. It was not always rosy of course, especially as a naive teenager in a foreign land, but I met many amazing and kind people who became great friends and helped me along the way. It made living here a great deal more inspiring.
CNTRFLD. What advice would you offer to individuals contemplating a shift towards pursuing their artistic passions?
CK. Make the kind of art that you love to make. It’s great that we find inspiration from other artists, but try not to imitate or let yourself be overly influenced by others. We should have our own styles that are unique to us. Stay true to yourself, develop and grow from what you’re good at. Experiment and let yourself grow into a better version of yourself. As much as we sometimes have shared interests and beliefs, everyone is different. We are all individuals. In order to develop your own unique vision, you need to be true to what you know and to allow that to grow. You might make a lot of mistakes along the way, but you’ll come to a much better knowledge of your own craft and become the expert at it. Don’t oppress your individuality with trends or conformity just to please others. If you ‘non-ironically’ copy a style, then you’re simply copying without saying something different through the act of copying. Am I being corny?
