Nicole RoquelIt was not easy. Being brought up as Filipina in Hong Kong without proper sense of belonging was a tough ride for Nicole. Feeling rootless, not speaking the language and being disconnected from her own culture, made her sense of belonging hard. But Nicole fought back and did not give up to be herself. She fully dedicated her emotions to her passion. Nicole escaped into a world of illustrations, drawings and writing in order to create a safe space for her, especially after going through mental health problems and toxic relationships. Nicole reflects on her childhood and humbly shares with me her insights of living in Hong Kong as a Filipina who does not speak the language whilst being an art teacher and a very successful exhibiting artist as well. Speaking of attention spam - your artworks actually attract it so much as there is so much going on. Where do you have the idea that gives you the vision of your next work? I get a lot of inspiration from my own experiences. Many of my artworks are pretty much about my childhood as a Filipina in Hong Kong, nostalgic memories, as well as mental health issues. A lot of the ideas basically come from within me (laughs). In order to create the fantastical paintings as you do you also need to be able to do some self-reflection and internal work. How do you personally do that? Growing up, I had a very difficult time verbally expressing myself so throughout middle school and high school, I was writing a lot in my diary, which I suppose has helped me grow some self-awareness. Actually if it weren't for art, my other option was to be a novelist or a short stories writer. That’s what I was hoping to be, or even to be able to do both - art and writing. Like an illustrator and a novelist. My biggest dream is to be a book illustrator, actually. Ohh maybe like for kids books or straight for adults? I'm good with either - with kids and young adults. I think there is so much that can be told even to young children. Every time I go to bookshops, I really enjoy reading children's books (chuckles)! I also love seeing the illustrations and the covers. That’s amazing. So here is an idea - if you would have a small kid, standing in front of your painting, what would you like them to learn about it? I’d like them to feel that my paintings could be their fantasy. It’s another dimension that could exist in this real world but because of all of the bright colours and surrealist-like arrangements of the drawings, I’d like them to feel that this could be their fantasy. I’d like them to look at my paintings and look at it as a safe space where happiness, the freedom to creativity, and assurance are given. I was thinking as it is quite hard nowadays to capture, especially when it comes to young people, their attention and keep their focus going - since we are so locked up on our phones, how do we bring them back to books and back to literature? That’s a bit tricky to answer because I don’t think we can truly escape from our phones. Perhaps if there were more diverse representation in terms of culture, characters and experiences, more young people would be drawn to find the kind of literature that personally resonates with them. What was the craziest interpretation of your work that you heard of? That’s interesting! Actually when the few people shared their thoughts about my work, they kind of got the gist of my art already (laughs). Quite surprisingly. Maybe it’s because many of the symbolism and the iconography that I put into my recent artwork is recognisable. For example in one of my latest paintings titled “Bowlcut” that I showed at the Creative Womxn in Hong Kong exhibition, I painted small details that were reminiscent to my local experience like the tiles of old homes and these particular green stools often found in local shops and tuck shops. I feel like a lot of people actually noticed them right away, especially the ones who were born and live here. They recognised it from their own childhood or personal experience. It’s kind of cool, I’d love people to be able to connect to each other through art in this way. How was it growing up as a Filipina in Hong Kong culture? It was strange (laughs). I mean growing up, I did not think it was super strange as it was so normal for me. But now looking back, it was a bit bizarre. From grade one until basically high school graduation, there was only me and one other Filipina in my whole entire grade. It felt very isolating but at that time, I was trying not to think about it too much and instead tried to adapt. I tried to be very optimistic. But then I realised later it actually hurt me more than I realised. There was always the experience of not truly belonging somewhere. I still see myself as a HongKonger but then when I was with my local Hong Kong-Chinese classmates or friends, there has always been this disconnect. But on the other hand, even with my Filipino friends I also felt that there was a similar disconnect (chuckles). Can you describe a little bit more of the disconnect? Was it the conversations, the creativity…? A lot of it was the conversations, I guess. For one thing, I don't speak Cantonese but I can understand fairly well. I didn’t have to take Chinese speaking classes in my secondary school where English was primarily used. Most of my friends and all of my family also speak English with me. It’s pretty much the same with Tagalog - I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I can’t speak it like I would like to, but I can understand it on a very casual level. It’s a bit sad that I wasn’t encouraged to learn my native language when I was young. My parents being immigrants, I believe this was their attempt of survival, in their hopes that I can “get ahead” without being held back in society by my ethnicity. So it has always been very strange to be always somewhere in the middle, always being stuck in between. There were also cultural and social status differences which I suppose inform a particular difference in behaviours. I studied in I guess what many would consider an elite local school where many of my friends and peers were much more financially well off than I was. There were small things that I did that were completely normal to me, but perhaps was a bit strange to my schoolmates. For example, I didn’t have a very fanciful or a cutesy Hello Kitty lunch box when I was in primary school like a lot of my classmates did. My lunch would turn cold because my lunch box was just a plastic reusable box, not heat-insulated like many of my friends’. Some of my friends pointed out how odd and unappealing my lunch looked - my Chicken Adobo with cold and coagulated sauce. Maybe because I was brought up in a very traditional and strict way, like I was raised to think that as a girl I couldn’t be loud or opinionated, my demeanour tended to be much quieter than many of my Filipino peers. They were always much more expressive than I was. It also didn’t help that I don’t really speak Tagalog. It was always made known to me that they thought of me as “very stereotypically local” since I was so quiet. This was kinda confusing for me because when I was with my HK-Chinese local friends, they would think that I was very chatty (laughs). I also felt strange to have be labelled in some sort of way no matter where or who I was with. I guess long story short, I just felt like I always needed to be a different person with different groups of people. I was wondering if this kind of disconnect played into your creativity? How did you start building up your imagination? Interesting question. I feel like when it comes to art - drawing or painting for me, I didn’t really think of it so strategically. Drawing was my comfort zone since I was really young and the one way I could outwardly express myself. Through my social anxieties and my shyness, I always tried to draw out either my feelings or a place where I wish I could escape to. I think I just developed the habit of doing that. As I got into my teenhood, I started to pick up inspiration from illustrations and films made by Tim Burton. I admired the way he uses his voice of childish naivety in fantastical macabre worlds. I didn’t think about my work so strategically in that way before - at least not until very recently. Overtime, I started to display that “disconnect” by contrasting the bright colours and whimsical nature with the longing expressions of my characters. You basically create a safe space during your creative process and that’s the essential bit. Yeah! Could your parents maybe feel the disconnect as well since you were a young kid? Did they encourage or tried to promote and support your creativity? My mum and my dad both had very different reactions to my art and my creativity when I was a kid. My dad was a musician and so in a way, he kind of could relate to my artfulness and he just left me to it. However, though my mum did let me continue drawing, she didn't realise that I was very serious about it. I don't think it really hit her until a bit later that I was actually really passionate about drawing and that it was something I wanted to pursue. I have this very vivid memory when I was about 7 years old, I've accumulated all of these sketchbooks (laughs) because I just kept drawing and drawing and drawing. And there was this one time when we had to clean the house during spring time cleaning and she just threw out my sketchbooks without telling me first! She was like “it’s taking so much space, it’s all over the bookshelves, we have no more space…” And that really hurt me. I cried for so many days (laughs). I think it was not even until that point when she realised that it actually meant something to me. That is such a shame! Would you ever try to recreate those sketchbooks? I don't think so. Just because they were very raw drawings. They were little thoughts that I don't think I would ever be able to replicate. A lot of those drawings were also purely explorative. That brings me to when I was watching Art Attack (editorial note:Art Attack is a British children's television programme revolving around art, currently hosted by Lloyd Warbey on Disney Junior). Every week they would air an episode and it’s just this guy showing drawing techniques, painting and sculpture making….and I would watch it and draw whatever I learned into one of those sketchbooks. So that was my very early push into learning how to make art from a more technical standpoint. How do you think that your ideas behind your work and the ideas behind your art changed throughout the time? At the beginning, a lot of it was really a way for me to express my emotions that I was feeling at that time. First, I was terribly anxious and second, I felt like society would not let me - being a girl, a Catholic and also considered an ethnic minority- verbally express myself. So the only way it worked for me was through drawing. So at the beginning a lot of my artwork was about me trying to channel all of the hurt, the sadness and the wishful thinking that I had at that time. Whereas now, I’d like my art to be more inspiring and engaging. I’d love to provide a fantasy and safe space that when people look at it, they can connect with my experiences and with each other. In the past it was more about myself and now it’s about wanting to build a sense of belonging along with others. How do you think in general that Hong Kong has the capacity to basically connect people through art? As it seems that the art scene here on the HK Island seems to be more premium and exclusive? We mentioned the Affordable Art Fair before and it is not quite the atmosphere or place that you would expect people to connect properly. I think that it is actually one of the biggest challenges of being an artist in Hong Kong. It is making that connection with different communities and we are all still trying to work that out. Art seems to be something either very exclusive or underground. Why do you think it’s that? I don't know. I feel like being here as an artist, you really need to proactively look for the art. It’s not always readily there for you, you have to go seek it and meet the right people in whatever art community you want to get yourself into. For some, it can take a lot of time and effort to find the right people for you. I’m not sure how we can fix it yet but I’m really hoping that there would be more platforms that are more open to showing different kinds of artists in the same shared space, coming from different walks of life. Perhaps it may help that we as a community support more local and independent artists/businesses who aren’t always affiliated with big-names and mainstream commercialism. We need more room for these artists to thrive as well, alongside those who are already considered exclusive. Although things have progressed since I was in high school, I think there is still too much exclusivity and segregation going on at the moment in the local art scene. At the same time, maybe in a way it also could be a bit to do with the lack of governmental support to push out diversity. I think there seems to be a growing attention to the local art scene, but I don’t think it’s enough especially when certain underprivileged communities are often being excluded. If the government is not really helping us in providing resources and spaces including to those who may not have an easy access to the various art communities, we can’t blame layman people for not knowing. I think that’s the problem with prioritising as well, right. The government does not have art and culture as their priority since Covid and neverending housing crisis. Whatever works commercially, yeah. Talking about commercialism, I wanted to ask you - are you creating your paintings full time? No, I also work as a part time art teacher. I like it though I never thought about myself as being able to teach art. It all kind of happened by accident. I had a schoolmate at my university who was teaching at the centre where I currently teach now and he needed a substitute teacher, because he had to temporarily leave Hong Kong for something urgent. At that time I just freshly graduated and needed the money, so I agreed to do it. And he never actually came back. So I ended up replacing him! It was very strange since I was like the new person there with the intention of not staying forever. So my boss asked me after a month if I wanted to stay and I said yes. How was the teaching for the very first time? It was a bit overwhelming at first, because I had to give so much of my energy to these little children. But I’d like to think that I can adapt very quickly and I did. At that time I was also kind of recovering from a very low point in my life, and I felt like teaching actually helped me a lot with that recovery process. I’m very grateful for being able to teach actually. Yeah, mental health in Hong Kong is still very stigmatised and it is something that is very taboo…are you okay with telling me a bit more about the low point in your life? Sure! My parents divorced when I was like 11. That was very difficult for me to cope with. It really changed me more than I realised. I was so confused at that age because it wasn't very easy to comprehend why this happened. And when you are being brought up in a catholic environment where you can’t be the girl who can say what’s on her mind - a lot of it was about being a girl who is very patient, very neat, very quiet and go with whatever comes in your way- it was very suffocating not being able to express that confusion and anger I had within myself. That was the beginning of everything I think (chuckles). So since then I kind of developed very unhealthy coping mechanisms like pretending to be a very bubbly girl at school and then I would go home and that would be a different story. Sometimes I would just have random outbursts at school when I would feel so overwhelmed and feel like crying, only to quickly switch it back to my optimist self. It felt like I always had to switch myself up a lot of times. I did not actually realise that I was doing that until much later. What happened after you went to the university?
It felt like I was finally accepted for who I truly was because there were “all of my art friends” and everyone gets me! But then I got into a few toxic relationships there. The one that really broke me and put me down to my lowest point was a relationship with a partner who was very abusive. Not physically but emotionally abusive. He was always on like a switch. He would be very nice at one point and then at the next minute he was on the opposite end of the spectrum. And also ever since my parents divorced, I've grown a very unhealthy and dangerous coping mechanism of self-harming. So this partner knew about it and used it against me. A lot of times when I was trying to leave the relationship, he would say things like “If you’re going to leave I’m going to hurt myself, or do something to myself and it will be your fault if I won’t make it through”. That momentum kept me in that relationship for 4 years! It was pretty tough and hard. I’m so sorry that this happened to you. It must have been very draining! It really was. This was all happening whilst I was finishing my school. The only way for me to cope with this was to dive deeply into work. I would just be painting and drawing, staying up all night…just to get work done. I would rather do that than dealing with what was actually happening in my private life. And was it mostly school work or either your own pieces of work that helped you express it? It was actually school work, because we had a lot to do. But if that relationship wasn't there, I really would have enjoyed my university experience. I loved the professors and the classmates that I had. Thank you so much for sharing that. It is very important to speak about and to show that artists are not always filled up with this perfect ideal fantasy that comes from a safe space. Yeah that would be nice (laughs). It was a lot of hurt yeah….my artwork, especially now, is so colourful and looks happy, but if you would look into the expressions of the faces, it may tell you something a little bit more different. So it is something that I actually enjoy doing in my artwork - to show these contrasting feelings and emotions that have a friction. I never thought about my artwork strategically, I’ve noticed it during the time later on and it worked for me. So the teaching was a proper saviour for you? It really was! When I started teaching, I was actually trying to get out of the relationship since I felt that it was almost at the end of it. I think that when I started teaching, it was reassuring to be able to be surrounded by these students who had a big passion in art. I was surprised that they really looked up to me and asked for guidance and companionship. That was very comforting to me. I think it was so nice to shift my emotions from this dark place to somewhere else where I was received well and recognised for my energy that I put into my work. What are your other projects and things that you would like to do in the future? I would like to try working in larger-scale, perhaps like a mural. I’ve tried it once long ago and really enjoyed the experience of working on something larger than me, like being swallowed whole by the art. I think it’d be cool to paint for a nursery room or a cafe, something that can feel more intimate. Also, I actually enjoy making costumes as a hobby and would like to try more of this, as well as making accessories - I’d like to learn a little more about these and perhaps expand my works in those forms or even collaborate with other small businesses that do these. How do you see yourself and your work in 5 years? I really see myself simply doing more of illustration. I’m really hoping to be able to illustrate my own children’s book - That’s the biggest goal. I always wanted to illustrate and share my experiences of being a third culture kid. As a female artist, do you think that it is difficult to put yourself out there in Hong Kong? I don't know if identifying as a woman is affecting any sense of discrimination, because sometimes I feel like I'm not sure whether it is because I’m a woman or because I’m a Filipina. I feel like a lot of the local art community is very exclusive towards their own personal local Chinese heritage. When I look at local galleries or local fairs, I don't really see a lot of representation of my own culture. What would you tell your fellow Filipinas who are trying to put themselves out there in order to stay inspired and fit in? I guess that I would encourage them to try reaching out to other communities as much as reaching out to our own Filipina peers. I feel like a lot of us including Filipinas, perhaps we feel comfortable sticking with just ourselves. There is still a lot of segregation - understandably we also want to stick with things that we know and are comfortable to us. It is definitely good to be part of your own community and have support but it is also super helpful if we ourselves reach out to other communities from other cultures and heritage too. I would really encourage that. Do you think that the Chinese community is the hardest one to reach out to? In a way, I think so. Not only because of the language that can act as a large barrier from connection, but also and moreso because of some of the societal issues that are deep-rooted and are still being dealt with today - issues concerning things like racism, colorism and classism. What would you tell your 8 year old self? That there is nothing wrong with me (laughs) and that I am enough. All that sadness, anger and confusion… they are all valid. Just keep on going with what you love, and the right people will come your way! Follow Nicole’s work on Instagram: @nicroquel.illustration Website: https://nicoleroquel.bigcartel.com/ Gallery website: https://www.clubthird.com/our-artists/nicole-roquel/
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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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