Modelling His Own Path

"Yuanyang"

"Tears"

Johnson Tsang opened the iPhone album, pointing to a porcelain work of a girl’s face titled “Tears”, and said: “I can put water into this work. When the water line reaches the level of her eyes, she will cry. I didn’t know if this would work until several days ago. After continuous testing I saw water overflowing her eyes.”

“I myself almost shed tears, because I was so moved," the Hong Kong-based artist who spent thirteen years as a policeman said emotively.

In 2012, at the Hong Kong and Macau Visual Art Biennale, along with over thirty influential artists from Hong Kong and Macau, Tsang’s work “Yuanyang” was placed in a prominent position, attracting positive attention from numerous media and audience members.

In 2012, his “Splash of Wonder” won the first prize at the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale over 110 other pieces of work from 27 countries. It is said that this Biennale offers the highest monetary award of all the international ceramics competitions.

His works are collected by institutions such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, as well as private individuals.

Despite many achievements, the artist found it most difficult to get others to recognize his ability, since he did not come from a professional artistic background.

Once in several competitions, the word he filled in the registration form “Modelling” was altered into “Moulding” because his sculptural works looked so realistic. "They thought I wrote the wrong word. I could not be reconciled to this misunderstanding at the beginning but later comforted myself that my work fooled a lot of people's eyes. That’s not easy!"