Exhibition | Taste of Summer Fashion at K11 Art Mall

Miss Fruity

It really has been forever since I updated my blog (one year almost to the day!), but I want to share with you guys one of my most exciting recent projects! It's an exhibition called The Taste of Summer Fashion and it's in collaboration with K11, a mall here in Hong Kong that combines shopping and art.

Their team had seen my Hong Kong Street Food art print (above) and wanted something similar for their fashion event for summer. Since K11 prides itself on being the world's first Art Mall (they even have a Yinka Shonibare in the foyer) one of the mall's features are a group of these giant showcases built into each level of the shopping center and that was where I was going to exhibit my work.

Photo courtesy of Object A

We decided on a Street Food x Fashion concept and I got to work sketching all 10 of the characters. I only had about 1 month for the project from conception to the final installation - so it was a bit crazy but I loved the feeling of diving into creating this world of characters.

I've been watching a lot of Ru Paul's Drag Race this year so when coming up with the ideas for each character I would ask myself "If this was the theme for the runway challenge what would I make and wear?" 

Here are all the Misses I created for the exhibition each inspired by a food item commonly eaten here in Hong Kong:

 Miss Peach Bun, Miss Ice Cream, Miss Iced Lemon Tea

 Miss Tofu Flower, Miss Egg Waffle, Miss French Toast

Miss Siu Mai, Miss Egg Tart, Miss Fish Ball

K11 had a really sweet film crew and we created a few videos together, here is the most recent where I talk a little more about my inspirations for Miss French Toast and Miss Ice Cream, we're also doing a giveaway for a Taste of Summer Fashion sticker pack so don't forget to follow the instructions on their Facebook page to enter.

Fashionary Illustration Workshop + Metrobooks Exhibition Photo Diary

Guess what! Thanks to the wonderful folks at Fashionary, you can now go check out one of my illustrations on display at Metrobooks in Times Square. They organized an exhibition for the book store's grand opening at Times Square in Causeway Bay featuring 9 other talented illustrators from around the world.

I thought this would be a really good chance for me to make a whole Fashionary blog post as I also got to lead a really amazing fashion illustration workshop with them this past March. It was in the gorgeous newly renovated Page One bookstore in TST. I was really nervous but I spent a few weeks prepping with the awesome team at Fashionary.

This is always my strategy. I always think about this quote by John C Jay, Wieden+Kennedy’s Executive Creative Director, if I have a new project I'm really nervous about: "Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.". I just make sure I do lots of prepping and practicing and set aside time to do so and then I can confidently walk into that project and really feel excited about doing it. This strategy has always served me really well (ok, minus that one time I tried to design a complete wedding suite on Adobe Illustrator, CTRL + ALT + DELETE! I still don't really know how AI works.).

After a short demo, everyone settled down with their own set of watercolours and Fashionary template paper and I lead us with step by step directions on how to create the illustrations, first using pencil to sketch, Copic markers for the skin and then finally watecolour for the clothing.  

We then practiced the face on a separate piece of paper before committing to drawing it on our final illustration, it takes the pressure off and you know what they say, practice makes perfect progress.

Vikki Yau was the other illustrator from the day, she lead the Copic Marker workshop in the afternoon and she's also the editor of Fashionary Hand.

My wonderful students and I! I hope everyone had as much fun at creating their own fashion illustrations as I did teaching the workshop.

And shout out to one of the attendees Alyn for her sweet review and blogpost about the workshop! Thank you so much!

CLICK for photos of the Metrobooks Fashion Illustration Exhibition.

Sketches / Pradasphere

Did you know Lorde was in town? Playing a secret concert for the opening of Prada's new exhibition Pradasphere in Hong Kong? No? Me either, but don't worry us plebes still got the chance to check out the fabulous exhibition housed in a temporary but glorious structure on top of Pier 4 in Central.

You've never seen the Lamma Island pier look so glamourous, the whole building got a Prada makeover with 'Yue Shue Wan' proclaimed in white letters on a sleek black background. And when you step inside onto the lush black and green checkered carpeting you are transformed into Miuccia's world and the brand's history starting from the 1970's onwards.

If it's one thing I love it's visiting fashion exhibitions.
Here's a few of the sketches I made at the exhibition, I love doing quick sketches while looking at the real thing it makes all the difference in making drawings with a lively immediate quality. After I got home I added a thin wash of colour in gouache and watercolour.

All these Prada shoe prints are available for sale on my Etsy shop, I'm also selling the set of original little sketches too, email me if you want to cop those.

Click through for the [IMG HEAVY] post with all the delicious photos from Pradaphere, warning-- you'll want to buy all the things.

Metamorphosis / Xu Bing at Asia Society

Before I left for my holiday in England I was lucky enough to be invited to preview 'It Begins with Metamorphosis' by the acclaimed Chinese artist Xu Bing at Asia Society. Acclaimed usually sounds like some frou-frou word which you use to describe someone who you know nothing about except that they're really famous. But in his case, Xu was rewarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 1999 (yes, the 'Genius Grant'!), so you know he's legit (bow down).

As you walk into the exhibition you are greeted by a large vase of mulberry cuttings, upon closer inspection you see that the stems are covered in small white silkworms feeding on the green leaves. As the show continues, the worms continue to devour the leaves leaving behind nothing but brown stems and the cocoons of the themselves entwined in silk.

I had never been to Asia Society until I went to see the Caravaggio exhibition a few months before, I had only seen pictures and it seemed like a magical secret place hidden amongst the trees high up in Admiralty with an illuminated walkway and peaceful Buddha sculptures. It didn't seem like a real place you could go to in Hong Kong, but alas love is a place and spring was in the air.

CLICK THROUGH to see more photos, sketches and what I wore from my luscious day at Xu Bing's 'It Begins with Metamorphosis' at Asia Society.

Fashion Illustrations for Tangram x Suki Cohen Lingerie Goes to Australia

Strawberry Milk, 2014.
Kitty N. Wong
Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on paper.

Turkish Bath, 2014.
Kitty N. Wong
Watercolour, pencil, ink on paper and acrylic on acetate overlay.

As Dorothy Parker once wrote, “I hate writing, I love having written.”
That's sometimes how I feel about making art, I love the process of painting, but what feels so good is having painted, something good hopefully.

Last year I made a series of illustrations for Hong Kong clothing brand Tangram's lingerie collaboration with Colombian designer Suki Cohen. The digital copies had been sent to the designers months ago and the original ink drawings sat mostly forgotten in my avalanche-like paper cupboard. I've been cleaning up and organizing in preparation for my the upcoming group exhibition, Fixation at Town Hall Gallery in Australia and I found these old ink drawings from the collaboration and decided to fix them up with some new coloured backgrounds and the dotted star pattern I've been really into painting lately.

When I was in design school, I used to have this feeling whenever I made a piece I really liked, I  was always afraid that was the best thing I would ever make, that I wouldn't be able to make anything so good ever again. I know now that's not the case, that the more I make the better I will get. But looking at these two paintings I made almost a year ago I can't help but wonder how I made these little light brushstrokes.

And so now Strawberry Milk and Turkish Bath are off to Australia for the Fixation exhibition, along with 16 other pieces. My Cat Marnell painting was even selected to be included in the event invitation! The show will be a part Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, I'm so excited and honored to be a part of it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be included by the very wonderful curator Mardi Nowak.

How to Sleep Like a Baby / Amenpapa Playbook Exhibition

Last week I stopped by the AMENPAPA Playbook exhibition that was happening at their Silvercord TST store.

First of all, what is a playbook? I found out about the project when Ambassadors of Design contacted me, since I did a piece for them during last year's DETOUR. AMENPAPA is a HK fashion label and  they wanted to get together some artists, designers and other creative people in the city to decorate and play with their lookbook to raise awareness for mental illness, thus a playbook exhibition.

There were lots of stylish people there, hipsters wearing bright neons and loud patterns and they had a live performance with a lovely singer and acoustic guitar accompaniment.

Here I am with my playbook! I decorated mine mostly by painting anxious girls and anxious phrases inside with messy inks and gouache. My inner Tracey Emin came out to play. More photos of my drawings at the end of the post. 

A playbook decorated to resemble a pillow complete with pom pom trim, perfect with the exhibition's theme "How to Sleep Like a Baby".

The brand's founder Salina in a bright peach coloured dress and the table displaying the playbooks on the right.

Doing a little doodle the audience during a speech, I wish all parties were as fully stocked with art supplies, there were jars of markers and pencil crayons on the big table in the middle of the store, I was in heaven.

I wore some wacky washed silk walking shorts I bought the day before from a deadstock junk shop in Mong Kok near the flower market, I also got these really awesome porcelain spoons from there as well. Wearing it with an Martin + Osa button up, vintage crochet bag and Mark & Spencer ballet flats.

Click to see photos from my playbook I created for the AMENPAPA Sleep Like a Baby Exhibition after the jump.

Artsy Guide to HK / Jumping on Stonehenge at M+ Inflation

Last week my parents and I headed over to the West Kowloon Cultural Distract to check out the M+ Inflation exhibition. It was amazing day and so much fun, full of larger than life inflatable sculptures.

It was pretty windy day so a few of the exhibitions weren't open, but none the less there was still 4 ginormous inflatable sculptures to be seen/bounced on. My favourite being the life-size (!) inflatable Stonehenge called Sacrilege by British artist Jeremy Deller. It was like the worldest biggest most artful bouncy castle set against a panoramic backdrop of the Hong Kong harbour.

Woo! Raise the roof, oops... Sometimes bad things happen to good people and the bouncy Stonehenge castle can get dangerous.

Pencil sketch, coloured in Photoshop.

We had so much fun bouncing on Stonehenge sculpture, I always love art that's interactive and delightful and makes you feel like a kid again - that's the best kind of art I think. I loved it so much I even made a little sketch inspired by hopping around on it with my mom, if you glide a certain way on it you feel like a weightless astronaut.

Yes, that is a giant pile of poop. Literally. By US artist Paul McCarthy. A couple of weeks ago, bad weather punctured the inflatable piece, titled Complex Pile and the HK tabloids had a field day with their 'shit explosion' headlines. Further back to its left you can also see the roast pig sculpture by Chinese artist Cao Fei.

An upside down cockroach and a pair of legs. Falling into the Mundane World by Tam Wai Ping.

Finished the evening with really delicious udon at Inaniwa Udo Nab at the nearby Elements mall.

For more info, head over to the M+ website, it's so creatively designed and my little drawing of Sacrilege is featured in the SNAPS section as well. The exhibition runs until June 9, 2013.