XPPen Marks 19th Anniversary with Conversation Featuring Artist Vivian Ho, Under The Theme ‘Original is Original’

In celebration of its 19th anniversary, XPPen has launched a series of events under the theme "Original is Original," featuring the participation of renowned Hong Kong artist Vivian Ho. By merging elements of reality and fantasy with a vibrant use of colors, Vivian's artwork showcases her sensitive perception and a vibrant, humorous character, which embodies the spirit and value of human art. Her works are also held in prestigious collections such as the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, the Farman Foundation in Switzerland, Japan's Nishijin Series, and the Gobirousos Art Museum in Greece. She has participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions around the world.

XPPen caught up with Vivian to talk about her insights into human art and originality, and her anticipation for being one of the artist judges of the Future Me 2024 XPPen Global Drawing Contest.

Defining Artistic Style

XPPen: Please introduce yourself.

Vivian: I'm Vivian, I am a Hong Kong based artist. I do oil painting, mural drawings, illustration and digital art, so a lot of visual art in general.

XPPen: How do you define your art style?

Vivian: I think my art is you can call it like urban surrealism, it's just like a term I made up for myself. I usually take scenes from Hong Kong and then play around with the scene with fantastical or whimsical elements that I imagine, and kind of mix them together to find a playful or fun way to navigate the city.

Urban Life and Inspiration

XPPen: As an artist who grew up and lives in Hong Kong, how has the city influenced your creations?

Vivian: What I actually want to capture in my works are not the places but more like the culture. I'm more intrigued by the way buildings are built, and the old district that were built in a more organic way, not in like a very well planned way.

XPPen: Which aspects of urban life most inspire you?

Vivian: I think the source of the inspiration mostly are the people of the city, like the people and the situation ship that i have with the city, and the most important part is to actually go out and talk to people.

I sometimes stares in the space and put things together in my mind, but mostly it's just like i do it in my mind when i have free time, when i'm spacing out, when i'm waiting in traffic, it's just very mundane and normal moments.

XPPen: Your artworks often reflect on Hong Kong's culture, social life, and emotions, do you have some stories worth sharing?

Vivian: So I created a series of oil paintings when i was in college final year, there are a series of dead fishes I found in Hong Kong wet market, I think what I wanted to look into wasn't the wet market itself, but more like the identity of me being a Hong Kong person.

When i was in college in Connecticut, I was really craving for fresh food, I really miss the fact that we always have a fresh fish market around, that would be the culture of what I'm living in. When we look at the dead fishes, other people from other culture might think ‘oh, it's grotesque, it's disgusting, it's bloody,’ but actually they're just ignoring the actual part of the killing. Is still there, they just didn't see it. As a Hong Kong person will go into a wet market and order that fish to be killed, and that is the value of being a fresh fish, and that is what we see as good food material. So I wanted to take this idea and then enlarge them, so I painted the death images on large canvases, and then forced people to look at the colors and the surfaces, the reflections, the layering of them, I wanted to force this into their face and try to invite them to see it like a beauty.

Wishes for XPPen's 19th Anniversary

XPPen: Our 19th anniversary theme is "Original is Original", what is your opinion about theme?

Vivian: The theme “original is original” for me is to just stick with your style, and don't think too much (and just stick with your style), and go on develop, that is originality.

XPPen: As one of the artist judges of our Future Me Global Drawing Contest, what is your opinion about "Future me" ?

Vivian: In the future, there are gonna be a lot of technologies for sure, but I think the most important part is to embrace changes, because there are gonna be a lot of changes. We don't have to be always following the trend, we stick with our own style, but we also be open minded to what is happening, what is changing, and be aware of the world and surroundings.

I'm happy to be part of XPPen 19th anniversary, so I'm gonna be one of the artist judges of this drawing contest "Future me", and I hope to encourage all the aspiring and young artists of all works of life everywhere in the world to come join this contest, and I can't wait to see your works. Happy birthday XPPen!

The Observation of Human Art and Technology

XPPen: How do you think of the recent impact of AIGC on original artists? What do you think AIGC brings to art creation?

Vivian: I think my experience so far is that it (AIGC) is hard to actually articulate the the scene in my mind, because they can't read my mind, I actually have to be the ultimate person to execute, so i don't think they can replace me. But I still embrace it as a tool that can potentially assist my creation.

I think we look at it this way like digital art didn't exist like maybe 50 years ago, people were still using like oil canvas, watercolor, but now we're doing tablets, we're doing digital art. So i think the creativity is the core more than the tool, so i think we should we should look at creativity.

XPPen: In your opinion, where does the value of human art lie?

Vivian: The core of art is not how it looks, it's more like the idea behind it. Why are you doing this, because there are million possibilities, so it's really the commands of what you're inputting that matters, more than the the graphic that it generates, so is the creativity.

XPPen: Compared to traditional pen and paper, what is your opinion about digital art?

Vivian: I really enjoy the simplicity of just a pen and a paper that I can do it anywhere, but I also enjoy the fact that like a tablet, how the pen can actually imitate the  actual pen, the pressure, and the texture. It is pretty impressive and also in a digital way, it's more convenient if you want to translate the drawing into a digital form.