A bowl of rice with roasted barbecue pork bobs on a wave next to a fisherman on a boat. A group of people are communing around a sunny-side up table which is resting in a giant rice cooker while a girl swims in an egg tart. And is that a mountaineer scaling a mound of deep-fried noodles?
Such is the artwork by Flyingpig on the cover of the MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong Macau’s 10th Anniversary edition. Taking "food island" as the inspiration, it is full of surprising details that appear the longer you stare at it.
Who is Flyingpig?
The artist behind it is Wong Wing Shan. A graduate of the School of Creative Media in the City University of Hong Kong, Wong loves to sketch the city and believes art can be educational and touching.
So why Flyingpig? “In high school, a classmate started calling me ‘fei tin ju’ and it caught on—I was called Flyingpig my whole high school and university life. Once I started work, I wanted to develop my own brand. This name is meaningful to me because it represents the real me,” she explains.
Since then, she has had solo exhibitions at Lawnmap Hong Kong and Eslite Bookstore, and in 2016, she published her first book featuring drawings of traditional local shops, documenting their operations and concepts in her warm and fresh style.
“I’m very inspired by the work of photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa. Cartier-Bresson's delicately designed photos inspired me as an urban painter. Capa captures people and things in one special moment, and his work is filled with humanity and that inspires my speed drawing a lot. I love to sketch old streets and people.”
Putting a local artist in the limelight
This year will mark the 10th Anniversary of the MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong Macau, and to commemorate it, the cover of the 10th edition will be a celebration of local talent.
Wong recalls: “Before I was part of the project, there were rounds and rounds of selection, and at first I didn’t think I stood a chance because I am so local and down-to-earth. So when I was selected, I was very surprised and excited and dedicated a lot to it.”
One of her main concerns was about how to relate the Michelin brand image with the local Hong Kong culture. “I care a lot about the local people and our culture, so when I was first invited by Michelin to do this, I started to think about how I could express Hong Kong food and culture in my work.”
In the course of the month she spent designing the cover, she rediscovered her connection to Hong Kong’s cuisine and drew on that as her inspiration.
“The MICHELIN Guide makes me think of good food—whether it’s fine dining or street food, it enters the list when it is made with heart,” she says. “When I was creating the work, I thought a lot about my favorite foods from Hong Kong, like the egg tarts my mother would buy for me for an afternoon snack while I worked long hours, or the wonton noodles I would frequently eat for lunch. So, this piece is full of personal food memories for me too.”
Art Concept: Food Island
Inspired by the MICHELIN Guide’s signature red cover, Wong employs a pink water-color for the 10th Anniversary edition. She conveys her gratefulness to Michelin for allowing her the flexibility to express herself freely and fully in the work.
“I care about the process and the story behind each piece, rather than just the end result, because you can see how the artist records their own feelings abstractly by looking at the way they draw and even the detail of every stroke. I like how smooth and lively watercolors are, every stroke is filled with humanity,” she says.
True to her style of attention to detail, the illustration is whimsical and colorful, full of surprises in every corner.
“Hong Kong is made up of 108 little islands, and I imagined all of them as different Hong Kong foods like an egg tart, wonton noodles, prawn dumplings and siu mai floating in the sea with people traveling between the islands and enjoying the food,” she explains. “I specifically included a fisherman on a boat in the right corner to remind people that Hong Kong was once a fishing village.”
Her illustration is an abstract celebration of the 10 years since the MICHELIN Guide arrived on Hong Kong and Macau’s shores. “Everyone in the local F&B industry looks forward to the selection announcements every year, and in this time, the Guide has built a very trustworthy reputation here.“
And how does she hope people will respond to her work? “I hope more people will bring the Guide home because the cover is created by a local artist, it is very meaningful.“
