Hello beautiful, creative people!
Today's featured artist is Wingkei! Her bold and powerful art tackles big topics head-on; exploring subjects like identity, and challenging traditional perceptions of the female form. In her own words, she is "on a quest to make the world more colourful, fearless and kind" - and here she is!
If you'd rather watch this interview, the YouTube video is below.
Hi Wingkei! Please can you introduce yourself to our subscribers?
Hey, I'm Wingkei, I am proudly Chinese-British, pronouns she/her, I'm 24, although I've apparently looked 18 for the past 6 years! I'm based in South London, and I've just moved back in with my parents. My artwork focuses on exploring and celebrating the female form. I do it all digitally on my iPad.
I'm not a full time artist, as much as I'd love to be, ever since I lost my day job because of the pandemic, I've been freelancing as a social media manager, but I used to be a civil engineer, fun fact! I worked a bit in research, did a bit of marketing… and at the moment I'm going through another a career change but hopefully it will be the last one.
Amazing, Wingkei, thanks for taking the time out to talk to us! You mentioned a little bit in your intro about what fuels you to paint, the celebration and the reclamation of the female form. Could you expand on that a little?
Yeah, sure! Why I decided to focus on drawing bodies, specifically women's bodies, was that I just wanted to build a community through a very intimate and empowering space. And even through that, my relationship with my own body just shot up; you wouldn't believe how different I was a year ago. Even last week I made a 20-minute appearance in my friend's life modelling session, posing nude for the very first time. And you wouldn't believe how easy it was to just like take my top off over Zoom like it was nothing!
Over the pandemic, I'd joined a lot of life drawing classes, and that's given me a lot of inspiration – just seeing how others view nudity in such a matter of fact, kind of "this is nothing taboo" sort of sense. It really helped with my own journey as well.
Do you believe that by starting to paint and get involved in art, it's had a profound effect on your own self-image?
Oh, definitely, yeah. I do like to do a lot of self portraits, not only from like an easy logistical sense - when you start painting other people, you have to ask for their permission and there's so much legal grey area. Whereas if you do it yourself, you can do whatever you want, and that's when the boundary between the art and the artist is very, very fluid.
I read an interview that from a young age, you experience overt and covert racism. How do you feel the world has changed as you've grown up, and do you feel there have been steps taken in a positive or negative way?
To be honest, it gets to a point where you experience it so often that it just becomes very normalised. There's not one week really where I go out and I don't experience something. The only thing that has changed, though, is that I've learnt to call it out. Depending on what the situation is and how safe I feel in the moment.
Looking for your artwork you've got some incredibly powerful and thought-provoking pieces. Is there a particular piece that that you're especially proud of?
I'm proud of all of them! But if I had to choose, it would probably be…
This one was one that I painted in a life drawing session, and it was around the topic of periods and how they shouldn't be stigmatised. And in that session, it was amazing, [the model] was somebody wearing bloodied pants, and there was like a tampon string hanging out. It was a very, very intimate space. I don't think it was real blood though... That would have been very extreme!
I read about the first life-drawing that you went to, and you had a great quote, saying that you’d paid £28 “for the privilege of seeing this white pasty body and withered testicles”!
It's true! Back then, I guess there weren't so many marginalised bodies being represented like that. It was always the same kind of bodies. It was always very white, very middle class bodies.
I know that a particular artist that inspires you is David Shrigley?
Oh yes, I love him! David Shrigley is always going to be one of my favourites, because he just shows that art doesn't have to be some profound thing with a message every time - it could just be really silly and make people smile and make people laugh. And that's another thing that I've tried to work into my own artwork as well. I'm trying to build like a more genuine connection with people on Instagram, because especially if you're an active artist, you don't want to just ‘someone online’. So what I've recently done is I've started writing letters to people. Every month I'll pick out three followers and I'll just write a nice heartfelt, sharing everything, like heart to heart, handwritten letter to them. Build a connection offline.
That's amazing! I think there's something really special about actually receiving something in the post.
It’s much more personal. It does get kind of difficult sometimes it’s someone I don't know very well, but I think that in itself is quite a unique situation. I don't know if you ever get this, but speaking to strangers can be easier than speaking to someone that you know. You can reinvent yourself however you want!
You have written a poem called 'The Impossibly Coloured Room'. Would you be happy to recite it for us?
Yes, of course!
She lives in a room two inches deeper than everyone else.
She listens in a room that won't stop talking.
She learns in a room of constant failure.
She loves in a room abundant with loathe.
She stops in a room crowded with hustle.
She suffers in a room full of antagonism.
The room is unpredictable and keeps her up at night.
But it is painted an impossible colour.
For it does not exist unless you force it to.
*Applause* That was beautiful!
Thank you!
Thanks Wingkei! We will be adding one of Wingkei's A5 prints into the envelope with May's poem for 4 randomly-selected Poems by Post subscribers, so make sure you're signed up to either our Printed or Typewriter Editions by the end of April!
You can find our more about Wingkei and see her artwork on her website, www.artbywingkei.com, and on her Instagram (@art.by.wingkei).
