Past Shaped Fok\'s future

By Zelda Cawthorne
South China Morning Post
Hong Kong (1992)

Carolyn Fok, the native Californian is exhibiting in Hong Kong for the first time.

"My painting Twenty-First Century is a landmark piece about looking forward."

At 25, Fok can hardly be expected to be nostalgic for the swinging decade, though she has great respect for the era that produced Salvador Dali, Man Ray and the school of surrealism. Its influence can be seen in the 10 arresting oil on canvas paintings -Twenty-First Century included - which go on show at Ho Gallery World Art, Repulse Bay, today: undoubtedly inspired by the great early 20th-century surrealists, but also highly individual and accomplished.

"Carolyn is a remarkable young artist and there's been enormous interest in her exhibition. About half the paintings have already been sold," the Ho Gallery's Peter Kjaer says. The daughter of a Hong kong-born father and an American-Chinese mother, Fok graduated with honours from the San Francisco Academy of Art and has been winning awards for her painting and graphic skills since she was 18. The product of "two separate, but inextricably linked traditions," Fok says she has been influenced as much by Chinese scroll paintings as Western styles and techniques.