Today we’d like to introduce you to Chi Yeung.
Chi, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I always like to draw when I was a kid, scribbles can be found all over the place, text books, furniture, wall etc. However, growing up in traditional Chinese household, pursuing art is highly discouraged, my father, who is a veteran, would talk me down or even throw away my art supplies. The climax in Hong Kong didn’t really help artistic kids neither. You would be hearing a lot about how to plan your career carefully, what credit is most advantageous when it comes to applying for college and art never going to come up in suggestions. Slowly, I stopped drawing completely.
It was not until I came to US for college I got to pick up my long lost hobby again. In 2014, I took an intro level oil painting, with no experience or any knowledge I didn’t know how to prepare for the class. Therefore, I asked my friend who is an amazing artist, Gyan Samara for help. With his help I picked up the hobby of painting even after finishing the painting class.
As an artist. I cannot say that my work has really great meaning, the subject matters that I choose are mainly things that I am fascinated with and things that bring joy to me, and hopefully my viewers, such as nature and sweetness.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It hasn’t been a smooth road for me, like I mentioned in the last part my parent doesn’t really encourage me to pursue art. While they are not against it like they used to be, it’s still defeating when my closest people don’t understand or care about what I love.
I am still really young as an artist, it’s almost as a double edge sword. While I try to expose myself to different style, learn and try to copy artist that I really like, I still haven’t developed a distinct style that I am comfortable with.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My Instagram page is mainly serve as a platform to share my art work to the other and my art journal.
What were you like growing up?
I was born in mainland China, grew up near Dafen, which known as oil painting village, but due to my parent disapproval of pursuing art I never get to take any class or have formal training. However it did not stop me from drawing, I would save my breakfast and lunch money so that I can buy some sketch books, which always ended up being thrown away by my father. My family moved from place to place, I attended 5 different grade school because of that, and we ended up moving to Hong Kong when I was 11. I found myself constantly adopting new environment and meeting new people, which made it very difficult to make friends and I think it contributes to my introvert nature.
Having a lot of time of myself, I often indulged myself in my fantasy, epic space battle, magic journey etc. I would imagine myself as a character in anime, movie or TV shows. I am the very definition of a nerd. It is very satisfying for me to build things from ground up, constructing a story, building model, drawing sketches, because I can literally and visibly see my progress and result. It brings me joy when people like or be entertained my work.
In the last year of my high school, it struck me that I don’t want to look at numbers and balance sheet for my career, I want to do something more colorful, more challenging and enjoyable for me. After a very long battle with my parent, they finally agreed that I can choose my own career path, I am currently a senior in DePaul University majoring animation (game art) and I wish to become an environment artist.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 773 503 0585
- Email: ycs051170@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ycs_shing/
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