A Chinese Surrealist

by Karen Smith
Artention Magazine, Hong Kong

In whatever circumstances people find themselves - born, educated, living or working - removed from their cultural heritage, distance grants a special gift, the gift of perception. This perspective on the world stems from awareness of adopted surroundings through the eyes shaped by a different language, a variant set of sociological parameters and distinctive features that draw forth their own sentience. Creativity resulting from this awareness offers on exciting, unique commentary.
Fine Artist Carolyn Fok exemplifies this awareness.

Born in Los Angeles of a Hong Kong Chinese father and an American Chinese mother, she states that she has had the opportunity to "enjoy the advantages and perils of two, but inextricably linked, cultural traditions." For Carolyn Fok the two cultures, Chinese and Western, are linked by her own being; two sides of the same coin. Both have had equal influence on her approach to art and the ideas that fuel it, but like an increasing number of artists in similar situations, she goes beyond any East/West definition, any attempt at overt bridge-building or union, and produces work that comes, in her words, "directly out of my personal experience with life."
As artist and independant female, she also veers to conform to any of the convenient pigeon-holes, equally endemic in modern art and society. As a female, dealing with her own experiences, her images naturally portray a woman's view of a sociological environment, of time marching over cities, people. But to describe Carolyn Fok's work as lamenting the "plight" of women in the modern world, would be an injustice to the complexity of her compositions and seriously underestimate her broad overview of the world. Drawing inspiration from a Surrealist approach to the juxtaposition of imagery, Carolyn Fok weaves webs across her canvases that represent both "purity and hope" and "urban chaos and technology", a "yin-yang view of opposing forces." This both-sides-of-the-coin sensibility comes as a response to an environment, via a questioning mind. The bright twentieth-century colours with which Carolyn Fok blocks in her forms, belie an element of nostalgia, and at the same time strongly suggest that surface and superficial serve as a public face on a world of contrasting, disturbing and protecting layers underneath.

Only twenty-six years old, Carolyn Fok has shown her work in several group exhibitions in New York, and a solo show at the Ho Gallery here in April. Her work has also been recognised with numerous awards, most recent of which was awarded earlier this year; an oil painting on canvas, entitled Multiple Traits of Woman, was selected by the Philippe Charriol Foundation as a winner in their 1992 Modern Art Competition. This brings the opportunity to visit Paris and encouragement that Carolyn Fok hopes will help her to "understand (her) current level of work and to proceed with more acceleration." One can only hope that she will always take the opportunity to pursue the question, "What is your expression contrary to mine?"

-Exhibition 15 October - 9 November 1992
Piazza Romano, B of A Tower, Hong Kong