her afternoon (ft. Scentory HK)her afternoon is a charming minimalist illustrator who creates vulnerable yet peaceful space and worlds in her works. When you look at her work, you get lost in a little and that’s what makes it fascinating. her afternoon is based in Taiwan but recently had an exhibition in Hong Kong, curated by Scentory Hong Kong. We had a wonderful online chat where we not only spoke about Her Afternoon work and the characters in it, but also art, films and music. We’ve also discussed what makes us as a society vulnerable and why we struggle to be tuned in with each other.Thank you to Scentory HK for making this interview happen. So nice to meet you! Nice to meet you too! Are you from Hong Kong? Yes I am yeh! And you are currently in Taiwan, right? Yes, I am. I’m so glad that you have time to do this with me! Congratulations to your exhibition that just recently finished in Hong Kong. How do you feel after that? It made me reflect on how my artwork can evolve and what I really want to convey to the folk in the future. I actually have stopped drawing for a few weeks and immersed myself in more books and movies. Yet, I keep thinking, travelling, and reflecting in order to experience life to stay inspired. Yeah that is so important to keep yourself inspired. I was wondering about the name of your exhibition which was called “Distance - The Retrospective of our lives” that heavily focused on the pandemic and the fragility of human connections - how was the isolation and lockdown to you? Well I think isolation can be both physical and mental. Hong Kong’s lockdown was relatively brief and less pervasive compared to some other countries. Yet, it still created huge barriers to human connection, especially after the collective trauma we had experienced in the past few years. People lose faith, hope, and trust. And COVID just rubbed salt on the bleeding wound. Another isolation I experienced was the isolation from time, particularly the future. I hardly planned anything. I couldn't imagine what would happen in one year and how our lives would be. There was a sense of melancholy and loss. I find it very fascinating that even going through so much stress and the confusion that was happening around the world you were still able to create very calm and peaceful artworks! It has never been an easy task for me. I pursue, via art, to keep that little hope and small joys around. Our world has already been very chaotic. We can't even spend some time talking to ourselves, or listening to ourselves. It became harder for us to recognize what is true and what we really want. Most of the people in the world kept losing hope and the home within themselves. Not many people can still be able to reach this kind of reflection like you do. It is great to find such focus within your work. I was wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about your technique? What is your process like? My drawings are created digitally so I use ipad. There is this programme called procreate That helps me all the way through. When it comes to the process, I read many stories and look at so many photos on a daily basis. I observe the details of people’s lives, on how they talk, their interactions. I love nature, so I also observe the trees, the clouds. This helps me pay more attention to things that appear naturally around me. Sometimes I just picture them, write some words and then I just try to draw that vision in my head. So when you look at people during your observations, what type of conversations and interactions do you choose to be your inspiration for your next piece? Have you watched the movie called HER? Yes! The one with Joaquin Phoenix! It’s one of my favourite movies! There was a scene where the AI called Samantha spoke into his ear and they were out together. They looked and observed groups of people sitting in a restaurant. He started to imagine what the people were talking about and what were their personalities and their relations to each other. So my imagination is very similar to that. I enjoy watching people talking to each other and observing what they have in common. I also like watching surreal things and misplaced situations, misplaced objects that are more abstract. For example when I view the sunset, read a novel, or watch a film. I try to match it to my imagination to create something new. My brain sometimes cannot content the amount of imagination that I have so my way of expressing it all is to draw about it. Can you please tell me a little bit more about the name “her afternoon”? Where did it come from? I think again it brings us back to the movie HER which I really like and I really like being surrounded by women. Being a female to be able to be sensitive, fearless at the same time makes me very glad for being a girl in general. I have so many feelings towards gender and don’t want to go super deep into gender issues, but for me personally as a human being I feel a sense of pride to be able to create my work and to draw as a woman. The name “her” represents one of my main identities attached to my work. And the afternoon is simply because it is my favourite time of the day - it is the time of the day when I can feel the fresh breeze, can feel cosy, relaxed. I want to create a relaxing afternoon for the people who see my artwork. You mentioned being very proud of being a woman. Here is a question - what do you think is the best and the worst of being a woman in today’s time? I couldn’t say it’s the worst of being a woman, but the physical vulnerability is really a constraint for me to live with a sense of security when compared to a man. I am still sometimes afraid of walking alone in the dark of some unfamiliar places. But at the same time, I am very proud of the tenderness and complexity of emotions that a woman could have. And most of the time, men will be easily judged by others if they are being sentimental, and that’s not the case for women. My sentiment and sensitivity could be expressed and embraced freely. Hm. I think that's very interesting that you are trying to find the balance and the harmony between the two when it comes to equality. This brings me to one specific emotion which you expressed and mentioned many times in your works as well which is a pain. As a society I feel like we’ve experienced so much shared pain - how do you think that people can learn from the shared pain as such? I think that the paradox of shared pain is the same as the paradox of loneliness. We share the pain and we feel lonely together. We always feel lonely, but we are all feeling lonely together. Some pain or sorrow is always shared. We may have some loss or we miss someone, but all the feelings you have are unique. But all of us can together feel them and experience them. It is so beautiful to find connection with others through something that we feel like we are all alone to experience it. On the other hand you need to face all of the ups and downs through your own experience which is completely yours, but it always helps to have someone with you to share and understand that journey of yours as well. There are still so many little things - we share the pain but we share the happiness too. Even though you are having a really bad day, there is always the sunset to look at, there is always someone new to meet with, a cute puppy to hug. It’s the little things that can still support you to keep going until the next day. It is the smallest ordinary things that are the most important for us to notice and for us to appreciate. I think I’ve definitely been through the most difficult last 2 years and yet I’m so grateful to feel the pain and enjoy the happiness after. It helped me to understand how frustrated and vulnerable life can become. I still have the faith for everything to get better and I hope that people will sense it from my drawings that all I want to show is the peace of mind. Yeah, that is really nicely put, sometimes it can be very hard to understand this in order to realise it. Yes and I hope that people will also appreciate the loneliness too. You can feel lonely but you are not alone because there are still so many other people that feel lonely but they are not alone. The levels of complexity are of course different, but still the same. Within your art and your drawings, you mentioned that you don't have any boundaries and there is nothing that restricts you in order to create. But I was wondering what are your own actual personal boundaries? I think that I have clear boundaries when it comes to people. In my drawings everything can be pretty much ambivalent. I’m quite clear in things that I like or dislike. Within my boundaries, I like the consistency that goes with it - the same goes for people. If someone says something, what are they thinking or feeling, I expect them to act like it - not just saying it. Can you think of some examples? I think I would say I always have reservations on some very sounding or popular issues or people. I would observe if the content or essential properties implied or reflected by a notion are consistent with most of the people suggested. I like genuine things. Agree. Especially in the time of social media where everything seems perfect, right? It also comes with some mainstream, popular things - it can be too much and too overwhelming for me (chuckles). Coming back to your work - I had this feeling that every single piece of yours they portray a different emotion. I was wondering whether you have a favourite emotion that you would like to capture in your work, which one would it be?
Maybe solitude if there is such an emotion like it? It’s probably more likely a state that you can be found in. Quite a lot of people have already told me that they have a lot of emotions when they take a look at my drawings. Although I am usually very calm when I’m drawing…My little characters are quite neutral I think, but I am still very open in discovering more emotions. I think it is also easy to relate and tune in your own emotion to my work as well. But my characters are usually mostly very neutral and observant. I see so it is not completely intentional - wherever you place your characters… Yes. My drawings are mostly trying to create a mood - the way you feel. But for the characters they don't have their own. For me, you are becoming the character already - an observant. You are basically invited to observe and look at your mood, emotions through the drawing. You may relate to it or you may not. I also heard that you are a Haruki Murakami fan? Me too! I was wondering if there is any inspiration that you get from his stories and his books? I really like his storytelling and his eternity as he writes. His books are usually based in the 60’s and yet there are still so many things that we can relate to. It transcends the time and the experience, he really captures the humanity within people too and the feelings and the emotions too. He can write many abstract things in a surreal way - it may seem absurd and ridiculous but in his words when you read it, you realise how possible and human everything actually is. The characters in his books also many times feel very lonely and dark. I really like his works. I read some of the sentences three or four times since he is a very optimistic pessimist (chuckles). His writing is also very persistent which I also really appreciate. He does not write for himself and does not necessarily explain things - he is totally creating his own world that is totally not related to his own, so that means he is a proper artist to me. Haruki Murakami is also a big fan of music. Is there any type of music that you like listening to, when you create? My favourite song is actually “The Sound of Silence”. The lyrics are so beautiful and the first few lines always resonate with me - the emotions come in and I can feel that I am there with them. I always listen to this song when I don't feel inspired. One of the lyrics says “People talking without speaking.People hearing without listening” - as a society we are in this state of mind unfortunately. So many people say things that they are not actually believing in and others do not listen to them. We’re unfortunately not communicating, not interacting properly. And since for my exhibition, the main component to my theme is “distance” - I ask the question a lot, whether we are still truly connecting as we are meant to. What are your plans for the future? What I really want to achieve is to keep drawing. It would be a great achievement if I could keep drawing. To keep being inspired and to express it through art is not easy. At this moment I cannot say if I am planning something big, but I really want to push myself just to keep going in drawing and keep being a better person. What would you like to say to other creatives and other women who would like to start drawing and illustrate - or just in general be creative? I would tell them to live well. Skill and knowledge is important but living is the real art. To love and to live well I think are the greatest aspirations in life. If you really want to do or make art, you need to have feelings - to feel all of the emotions and have the real life with ups and downs. Keep experiencing and keep loving it - that’s the greatest way to start. Make sure to follow Her Afternoon on Instagram: @her.afternoon Scentory Support: https://scentoryhk.com/collections/scentory-curates
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AuthorAlex Edwards is a founder of Creative Womxn in Hong Kong who has media and journalism background but also experience in art community development and social media management. Archives
November 2022
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