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Ahmad Rida Nisar with her mural, outside the AIA Vitality Park at Central Pier. She is one of five young artists taking part in a youth mentorship programme organised by HKwalls. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Street art in Hong Kong given the chance to shine thanks to HKwalls mural programme that gives young artists a platform for their passion

  • Thanks to a youth mentorship programme organised by HKwalls, five murals by five Hong Kong-based artists add a lively touch to Central’s AIA Vitality Park
  • HKwalls co-founder Jason Dembski says the programme gives emerging young artists a platform to build their confidence and to work with established artists

Ahmad Rida Nisar’s mural is whimsical: there’s a peacock with its tail in full bloom, a camel under a night desert sky and a trippy tree and mushrooms that would happily fit into a scene from Alice in Wonderland. It’s easy to see why the 23-year-old Chinese-Pakistani artist is eyeing a career in prop design.

The piece puts you in a good mood but Nisar admits there were challenges during the three-week creation process.

“There were moments of intense heat and torrential rain and I was also observing Ramadan,” says Nisar, referring to Islam’s holy month during which Muslims fast every day from dawn to sunset.

Nisar is one of five artists taking part in this year’s youth mentorship programme organised by HKwalls, a non-profit organisation that helps open doors for young street artists.

 

Five murals by the five Hong Kong-based artists – each measuring two metres (6.6 feet) by five metres – add a lively touch to the wall of Central’s AIA Vitality Park on Hong Kong Island.

Celine Setiadi’s illuminating piece is a burst of yellow, white, red and blue.

“I’ve done murals with spray paint in the past but this was the first time I’d used them in a free-form way,” Setiadi says.

Celine Setiadi with her mural. Photo: Jonathan Wong
 
Standing next to Setiadi is her mentor, Stern Rockwell, an artist from Brooklyn, whose style was shaped by the graffiti he saw on grungy New York trains in the 1970s and ’80s.

“Her piece is more freestyle and different to her usual geometric style,” Rockwell says. “I really didn’t know what to expect but she did an awesome job.

“People are interacting and taking pictures with the artwork because it’s in a really good location in the sense of the traffic. I once painted an entire building and it’s like some people just don’t look up,” he says, referring to his 27-storey mural completed in 2018 on Hollywood Road, Central.

 

The best takeaway from the programme, says Setiadi, was the knowledge-sharing between mentor and mentee.

“As well as technique, Stern taught me about the significance of public art and street art – art that’s meant for the general viewing public to see rather than what I’m formally trained in, which is fine arts.

“It’s a very different approach to art making and he got me thinking about stuff, like what does it feel like to put energy out there, and how will it vibe with people in that time and that space,” she says.

Carson Wong with his mural. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hongkonger Carson Wong channelled his love of nature with a piece showing two intertwined birds, their beaks locked together like battle swords and their winding bodies painted blood-red with details meticulously added in black marker pen.

“I was thinking about how the relationship between humans and nature is all tangled right now,” says Wong, who paired with mentor Kristopher Ho. “The beaks going through each other kind of symbolises that pain.”

HKwalls co-founder Jason Dembski says the mentorship programme gives emerging young artists a platform to build their confidence.

“It’s about passing on knowledge and getting feedback from experienced artists,” he says.

 
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