We recently connected with Teresa Yeung and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Teresa, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Since young, I have already developed a strong interest in Illustration and dreamed of being a graphic novelist. As my initiation, I create art to record moments of life for spreading happiness, making people resonate with me, and appreciating life. My favorite and most meaningful project is the experience of creating my original story: a little magical realm called the Lonely Island (寂生島). Originating from my dream one night, I realized it was not an existing place on earth. So, I guessed I dreamed about my utopia.

Creating dozens of stories in my mind, the Lonely Island is the most complete and well-thought story. Its theme communicates that even in life, we find dreams. I am very grateful to visualize this project with digital illustrations to create comic pages; and lithography, the traditional printmaking, to create an illustrative scroll in Japanese Ukiyo-e style.

Surrounded by mist and water, the Lonely Island consists of three parts; you need a boat to travel across them. You get lost, reunite with friends, meditate, and gain new insights. Nowadays, people over-pursue and idealize dreams; they dodge to somewhere pleasant and call it a utopia. Name Lonely because it is illusory, but my unique Lonely Island never truly felt helpless; it is a good place with friends, food, and inspiration. The most magical part is that it makes people realize that it is not something unreachable: it is indeed life itself, every beautiful thing seen, encountered, or created by ourselves. I want to encourage everyone to be brave in finding their utopias.

Not only do I enjoy drawing all details of wonder and mysterious settings, but the process of thinking over the context, boundary, separation, and connection between reality and the dream is also most rewarding. While drawing numerous preliminary sketches for the story, I question myself, do dreams and reality contradict or co-exist? Is dream reachable? Did we over-idealize our goals but overlook something that already exists? Devoting much time to designing a unique worldview with reasons, I am happy to visualize my original story and share my thoughts with the audience.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi! My name is Teresa Yeung, and I am an illustrator from Hong Kong. Since young, I have always had a strong interest in Illustration, which originates from my hobby of reading Japanese comics and anime and listening to music. This hobby slowly pushed me to train my drawing skills and inspired me to tell stories and express my opinions through artwork.

Specifically, I had a clear direction to study art and become an artist since high school. Having a notable talent for drawing, I create art for myself, but I also love to share art with others. I often draw birthday and festival greeting cards for family and friends, and it is happy to see their smiley faces. They are delighted not only because of receiving a lovely drawing but also because it feels heartwarming. From that point, I recognized I create art not only visually stunning but also with deep meaning; I realized creating art to spread happiness is my motivation and something I want to do constantly.

Aiming to be a graphic novelist, I love to create my original story and visualize it by drawing pages of illustrations and comics. Even though each of them varies in more real or fantasy backgrounds, my long-term aspiration is always to remind people of the joy in life. In my work, I often gain influence from real-life event, and capture daily life scenes to spread happiness, energy, and motivation. To my mind, it is a big theme to record everything in life visually. Even if it is achievable through different means, I choose Illustration as my medium: I want to record joys and sorrows in each moment of excitement or silence. Sometimes it feels melancholic, while sometimes, it is refreshing. It could be derived from my dreamy fantasy world or realistically capture a scene from daily life because everything comes from it. It is essential to brighten up every page in life and communicates its beauty to everyone, especially those who lost that feeling. My work is full of positive energy and humor, and I hope my bright color palette lightens up the mood of people every day.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I love many things about Hong Kong, my hometown, where I have lived for almost 20 years. There are so many memories I could not forget. Unfortunately, the education system and politics are continuously rigid; Hong Kong is becoming a less happy place to live, which hinders children from learning art and essentially prevents what they want to pursue.

I used to think teaching was my second choice as my career. Since 15, I started drawing comics and teaching classmates drawing in my Secret in-class demo. I even spent my last summer teaching kids drawing in an art studio. I am passionate about teaching, but I hope kids in Hong Kong can learn in a better education system. I want to change the art learning culture in Hong Kong deep in my heart. Frankly, I was disappointed with my high school art program. Of course, I love my teacher, but the education system is not advanced. I spent three years working on a portfolio with little input, influence, and inspiration from teachers. I feel lonely to keep working alone. I feel unsure about the nonsense idea of having timed exams that require us to draw a masterpiece within four hours. Therefore, I sincerely hope the kids can learn beneficial drawing techniques and draw from their hearts. It would be thankful to see them developing this interest when they are small, without being criticized for doing something “useless and time-wasting”. I hope they learn that even if they are not drawing realistically and only draw cartoons, they should be proud of themselves, for there are always people appreciating their work.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As a senior art student, I would say the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is to receive critique from others, where I can learn how to improve my work and impress others again.

Since young, I have heard people around me impressed by my illustrations. They say my work is beautiful and perfect, but the comment changed when I experienced the critiques in the art college. I challenged myself by drawing hand studies with charcoal in a drawing assignment as it was a new experience for me, and my classmates were amazed by my great drawing techniques. However, my professor looked unsure and told me the hands were beautiful but too perfect; he expected to see the imperfect parts. The whole class was surprised and became quiet again, and I felt defeated. However, reflecting on the critiques, I realized they were not mean words, but I felt my professor’s sincere and earnest wishes to hope I could try something new. The next time the class needed to draw feet studies, I listened to the professor’s suggestion and experimented with different mark-makings and brushstrokes. The work turned out wilder and less organized than before. However, still beautiful in a new way. The professor saw my work, gave me a surprised and delightful face, he said, “you did it. It is now perfect.”

I finally understand that critique is not the scariest thing in the world, but rather, it is a rewarding part where you can receive constructive comments to improve your work. Even though I still feel sad as I know how much effort I have made, I tell myself critiques are some professional comments that I can refer to, but I can preserve parts that I like. Learning to balance them is critical; eventually, you can create satisfying and impressive art.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://teresayeungsl3.wixsite.com/portfoliowebsite
• Instagram: @teresayeung_art
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
©Teresa Yeung Sze Lok, Image by the artist