Styles and Influence

by Mark Freeman
The Sunday Standard
Hong Kong

Two separate styles and cultural traditions are joined in a colourful clash in Carolyn Fok's work. The award-winning illustrator and artist was born and brought up in the United States, but has always felt the influence of her Chinese origins. The results are startling, often jarring, images, not unlike a freeze-frame from an avant garde music video. "Most of my paintings are constructed with alternating perspectives and shifting narratives. I usually try to conflate a series of opposing and complementary images that are symbolic of the overall picture. "It is precisely this kind of iconographic dualism that fuels both my life and art." The talents of Fok have been recognised in awards presented by the New York Society of Illustrators, the San Francisco Academy of Art and Citicorp Bank. She has held successful exhibitions in New York and San Francisco. But she says she is "very excited" by the opportunity to show in Hong Kong. "When people ask me why I paint, I usually answer that I enjoy sharing my ideas and feelings and observations with others in order to provoke an unconscious response, to paint a seed."