Fresh Perspectives! Artist in Residence

Long-term DB resident Richard Crosbie embarks on a new career as a watercolour artist, taking a hard look at the Hong Kong he missed. Elizabeth Kerr reports

PHOTOS BY

Beatrix Malan -

www.atscollective.com

The last time we heard from toy designer, singer and now ar tist Richard Crosbie it was as a DB representative of the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir (HKWMVC), way back in November 2021. At the time Hong Kong was basking in the glory of low COVID infections and relatively normal life. The choir was getting ready to resume its Christmas performances. Pride cometh before a fall as the saying goes. On this day, the 20-year Discovery Bay resident has scheduled his interview at a coffee shop in Central. It’s handy; it’s near the restaurant where he’s going with his wife for her birthday later. As with most people catching up post-pandemic, the subject of COVID comes up – what we did during lockdown, haircuts or lack thereof, subsequent revenge travel. For the record, Richard didn’t shave for a year. He flashes a photo, showing off some distinctly Nick Offerman in

The Last of Us

vibes. But he’s been busy, recruiting for the HKWMVC (he’s still just one of three actual Welshman on the roster), singing with the a cappella DeciBelles and partaking in this summer’s Barbenheimer (he’s yet to see

Barbie

).

PAINTING THE TOWN

Ultimately COVID was a good thing for Richard – relatively speaking – as it birthed his new life as an artist. The former toy designer left the toy game in March 2020, just as COVID erupted, and found himself at a loose end. “I made lemonade out of lemons,” he recalls. “I couldn’t go anywhere. I didn’t have a job. No one was hiring. I wasn’t in the mindset to design toys. In hindsight I used my time wisely. I didn’t know it would lead anywhere but if COVID hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be doing this.” By this Richard means the (mostly) watercolours of Hong Kong scenes and life he’s been doing since August 2020. Unemployed and trapped at home, Richard dug up an old, unused sketchbook, went down to the beach area at DB North and started drawing. After studying product design at art college and working in industrial, computer-based toymaking, he realised he hadn’t picked up a proper paintbrush in decades. “When I left my job, I was far away from the creative side,” he says. “I hadn’t done anything artistic in 30 years.” Richard started with scenes of DB, eventually expanding to other parts of Hong Kong: Tsing Yi, Wanchai, Peng Chau. “I realised I’d missed it, missed Hong Kong,” he says. “I’ve been here 27 years, and I started looking at Hong Kong in a new way. I was seeing it all over again, and appreciating it in a lot more detail.” Strangers soon began appreciating the detail too. After roughly a year of uploading on social media Richard was thrilled when messages and positive feedback started coming in. Like any artist he was hoping his work would connect, and it did. Browsers started asking for copies and prints, and it snowballed from there. He had his first market stall at DB Sunday Market in May 2021, and he’s been slowly generating a buzz through pop-up events at locations like K11 Art Mall, Clockenflap and the Arca Hotel. (Find him on

Instagram

). Richard’s work encompasses both “urban sketching” and “en plein air” painting created on location, as well as detailed works of art created in his DB studio. He uses pen, ink, acrylics and pastels, as well as the aforesaid watercolours, and is continually inspired by his surroundings. “I’ve been told that my style is quite distinctive,” he says. “The words ‘perspective’ and ‘detailed’ come up a lot. Now that I am creating art, I feel like I have awakened and can see Hong Kong anew. My art has taught me to observe carefully my surroundings. The more I look, the more there is to see. “I love living in Hong Kong and everything about it,” Richard adds. “I enjoy seeing the vast vistas and the tiny details, from cityscapes and harbour views, bustling market and street scenes to observing reflections in puddles and slowing drying paint on fire hydrants, I love it all.”

CREATING A BUZZ

Richard’s landscapes and street scenes have emerged at a time when Hong Kong, and Hongkongers, have become more reflective. The upheaval of the last three years has prompted more investigation and celebration of all things Hong Kong among locals, from craft gins to traditional crafts (think of those red post boxes). And while Richard recognises the recent changes and the wave of emigration, he’s not terribly intimidated by them. “Hong Kong will always be here. It’s very transient and people will always come and go. I’ve lived through the handover, two financial crises, pig flu, bird flu, camel flu, SARS, COVID and every time people have said ‘This is it. It will never be the same.’ But Hong Kong’s never been ‘the same.’ It’s always evolving. People always want things to be what they remember.” Richard throws down a Welsh word, hiraeth, meaning “longing,” or “a feeling of home,” then launches into a story about a painting he did for a woman in Vancouver who asked him to look for a chestnut roaster in Mongkok she and her aunt visited when she was a child. Amazingly, the guy was still there, and the woman loved the painting Richard did for her. “That’s what I’m picking up and detecting when people look at my work. It might not be a Hong Kong that exists, but it exists for them,” he says. Some of his most vivid work includes biro sketches of a DB garbage collector and a couple of guys on bamboo scaffolding, a Star Ferry staffer grabbing a mooring rope, a Causeway Bay taxi queue. Then, there are the watercolours of DB, wider Lantau, Ma On Shan and Connaught Road. Richard’s work flirts with impressionism in its skewed scale and soft edges, and realism with its encapsulation of the city’s most recognisable images. It won’t be long before Richard pushes beyond the boundaries of social media. He’s already had some exposure at exhibitions like Lights On at the Fringe Club, Joy in Art at Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and at the PMQ. In May he landed a space at the Affordable Art Fair (AFA), which was a bit of an ironic event. “I try to be accessible to everyone but evidently I was too affordable,” he says with a laugh. “I couldn’t sell any of my prints because they were priced under their threshold. And they weren’t numbered, so I had to sell originals.” Richard would like to return to the AFA next year, and ideally find an opportunity for a solo exhibition before that. “My work will make more sense that way,” he finishes. “I think I’m in a lucky position. I have a pretty good understanding of the customs and culture, and I like living here. I like recording the crazy things that make Hong Kong what it is.”