The Face of @surrealhk

There is nothing tougher than having to start from scratch. I mean it can feel liberating for one to have a blank canvas to paint on all over. But what if you don’t have the colors you once did? Then what?

I was 9 when my family decided to find their white canvas and migrated to Venezuela in the 80s. It was an immigrant’s life, I went from learning Cantonese in Hong Kong to studying an alien language I had never heard of before, Spanish. Even though we were always seen as immigrants, I was young, so adjusting wasn’t that hard for me.

As I grew older, Venezuela became a home. I spoke the tongue, ate the cuisine and befriended the natives. Along the way, I picked up graphic design and photography and began working as a professional photographer. Despite Venezuela’s deteriorating political and economic climate in later years, things were still alright, I was still able to make a living. But in recent years, the situation there has been dire. Poverty an all-time high, food scarce, and electricity simply not a basic need people can afford. I was left with little choice and moved back to Hong Kong. It was difficult, heartbreaking to leave everything and everyone behind, leaving the country I had learnt to call home. But what else could I have done?

When I first got back to Hong Kong four years ago. I could sense the political tension in the air. And even worse, I could sense the lingering unhappiness Hong Kongers carried within them. Unfortunately for me, the feeling was mutual. I was back in the city of my birthplace in my late 30s, leaving behind all I had built in the country I learnt to call home, and starting from scratch wasn’t going to be easy.

That’s where @surrealhk came along. I decided to start an Instagram page where I used my skills of photography and photoshop to bring my figments of imagination alive. @surrealhk became my way of expressing myself and my perspective on Hong Kong. At first, it was only fun and games. But soon, before I even knew it, I was touching upon controversial topics through my art. Despite not having been in Hong Kong nearly my entire life, it somehow quickly resonated as home.

In a sense, it gave me a voice, a way for me to express myself, taking stances on what I felt was right or wrong. Hong Kong gave me something I had lacked my entire life as an immigrant in Venezuela. What makes me most happy isn’t even the work I am doing but how well the people here receive the art I create.

It’s going to be @surrealhk’s third anniversary in February and I couldn’t be more thankful to all the people who have stood by me and the artwork I have been making for our Home

Kong.