June 12, 2025 |
Cary Kwok has always been a flirt. Known for his biro-drawn (ball point pen-drawn) orgiastic tableaus and high-camp reinterpretations of pop culture, his work often reads like a well-dressed rendering of something altogether filthier. But in Is This Love? – his sixth exhibition at Herald St – Kwok trades the full-frontal spectacle for something more pared-back, though no less seductive.
Everyday objects take centre stage beneath dimly lit skies and shadowed backdrops: toothbrushes angled in private choreography, a lipstick-stained cigarette kissed warm with implication. The works are intimate, cinematic and deliberately restrained. Where earlier drawings leaned into parody and hyper-sexualised humour, this new series trades the punchline for tenderness, painting some of Kwok’s most romantic works to date.
“I think they’re about love, desire, intimacy and nostalgia,” Kwok says. “My new works are quite romantic, and some are a little darker than usual,” he adds, referencing the muted palette. “I deliberately steered myself away from my more sexually explicit work a couple of years ago, but I am reintroducing some erotic elements this time.”
Kwok was born in Hong Kong, where he first studied footwear design before relocating to London in the late ’90s to study fashion at Central Saint Martins. Since then, his work has caught the attention of institutions like Tate Britain, The Flag Art Foundation and the ICA – while also becoming something of a cult favourite within niche art and fashion circles.
He first rose to prominence with biro-on-paper depictions of male eroticism – elegant, unflinching and gleefully indecent. But behind the provocation has always been a streak of silliness. “I don’t think I’m trying to say anything,” he says. “It’s just my sense of humour.” That instinctive absurdity – shaped by early exposure to Hong Kong slapstick and British sitcoms like Absolutely Fabulous and The IT Crowd – still underpins his work. “Comedy is funniest when the punchline is unexpected,” he says. “I love it when the viewer gets the joke and laughs.”
Cary Kwok: ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye – Chapter 3’, 2024; ‘The Reunion’, 2025; ‘A Chapter’, 2025; ‘Is This Love?’, 2025; ‘Rouge’, 2025; ‘Is This Love? (Holiday Edition)’, 2025; ‘Beguiled – Chapter 3’, 2025; ‘One Cigarette in an Ashtray – Chapter 4’ (Shot by Cupid), 2025
In Is This Love?, still life is reanimated – suggestive, even. In One Cigarette in an Ashtray, a solitary object becomes a narrative hinge. In Till the End of Time, two toothbrushes lean gently inward, animated by invisible intimacy. “I’ve always been fascinated by everyday mundane things that tell stories,” Kwok says. “Things meaningless to some but significant to the owner. How something once loved and treasured can be seen by someone else in a completely different light.”
His process has evolved too. Working in acrylic on cardboard, Kwok now approaches paint almost like watercolour, layering together moody, richly toned compositions that borrow from cinematic language – cropped frames, suggestive lighting and spacious tension. “I am fascinated by camera movements and shots, and their power to carry a story,” he says. “My recent paintings are more like zoomed-in close-ups of my previous erotic work. It’s more subtle.”
Still, there’s cheek beneath the allure. Look closely and you’ll find it in the design of a lipstick case or scrawled on a faux label masquerading as a luxury logo – a sly nod to past works like the much-memed Disney parodies where Aladdin‘s Genie is caught cheating with the pauper, or another aptly titled Mulan Rouge. “I simply make things that amuse and move me… whether they come from memories, imagination or fantasies,” he says. “I don’t think I ever thought that deeply into what’s behind my Disney parodies… I like to create beautiful imagery that tells a story and amuses me.”
Kwok continues, “I want to capture a feeling in imagery… to immortalise moments and memories – whether they belong to me, somebody else, or come from imagination.”
Long-time fans of Kwok’s surrealist provocations will still find that signature humour glinting beneath the surface, only now it’s dressed differently. A soft eroticism – one that trusts the viewer to fill in the blanks and understands that sometimes the most seductive thing is the story you don’t get to see.
So – Is This Love? Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s something close. Head to Herald St and decide for yourself.
Photography by Jack Elliot Edwards, courtesy of the artist and Herald St, London.
Cary Kwok: ‘Midnight in Paris’, 2024
