The visual artist Paul Mok employs a variety of forms to construct and disrupt an ever evolving conception of form. He attended Harvard Graduate School of Design for architecture and also works as a designer and artist. Mok’s dynamic background is imbued throughout his artworks with careful intention paid to the exploration of shape and relation of space. In viewing his multimedia works there is an exquisite complexity that cannot be ignored. The variety of mediums all come together in an almost scientific paradigm of questioning and searching through the detailed line work and execution. Flaunt sat down with Mok to dive deeper into his creative practice, inspiration and approach.
**Can you speak about your background?
**I grew up in Hong Kong. I have over 10 years of experience as a designer in the architectural field. I moved to Boston for a master degree in architecture in 2014. I moved to New York, where I am currently based, in 2018.
Paul Mok - New York-based, Hong Kong architectural designer and artist
**What prompted you to begin making art?
**I naturally seek meanings and patterns behind everything. Architectural design requires lots of creative problem-solving, but not so much of meaning-making. So, parallel to my design practice, I need time and space to make things that are not immediately functional / explainable.
Solo Exhibition _The Study of Mundane_ at Gallery GAIA
**Where do you draw inspiration from?
**I don’t really know where the inspiration comes from. I see my creative process as a way to process the whole of circumstances, if that’s even possible, and so I tend to avoid any direct, conscious relationship between my works and any immediate incidents. In retrospect, though, the works did capture part of the reality during the making process.
For example, the big pro-democracy protests first started in Hong Kong in June, 2019, when I was making _You Killed A Kiwi - A Situation Comedy For Those With Wounded Egos._ I didn’t think the two were related at first. But looking at the piece now, one could claim that I might have translated into the piece the devastating news I watched night after night and all the racing thoughts I woke up from for months.
_You Killed A Kiwi - A Situation Comedy For Those With Wounded Egos_
**Can you speak about your creative practice and process?
**If there is a project in hand, I tend to do lots of research around the topic. I like to collect as many materials as possible, even if most of them seem completely irrelevant at first. For example, I was working with two other designers on an Icelandic volcanic museum design competition last year. I had the team to spend 3 months researching everything about volcanoes and Iceland. And then each of us had to write a piece of “something” to make sense of all the findings. I somehow concluded that we should be designing “a solid piece of fundamental void”.
It was from a similar process that I completed my graduation thesis. It was an exploration that began with housing as a typology, and then demolition as a personal event, and finally a speculative architectural proposition as the outcome.
If there’s no specific project in hand, I tend to just start making something (cutting up some secondhand furniture, making random gestural forms out of clay, etc.), or putting random pen strokes on paper, or writing short proses, until a clearer intention emerges.
_To Play_ Paul Mok’s graduation thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design
_To Play_ - Paul Mok’s graduation thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design
**What is your favorite material and or medium to work in?
**I haven’t found a favorite material yet. I do lean towards things that are naturally coarse and rough.
**What has been the most rewarding series to construct and execute? Why?
**The execution process itself is never rewarding. In fact, the constructing process is usually a rather turbulent experience. I once confessed to my friend at my solo exhibition that “I was never happy making any of these things (the exhibits)”. That might have something to do with the fact that before I finished any of the installations, I never knew how they would end up looking like, or even what they would be about.
**What are you currently working on?
**In my next project, I want to be able to capture existence (circumstances, reality, etc.). I just submitted an installation proposal to an open-call here in New York. I’m waiting to hear back. I am also drawing a triptych of stroke-drawings, similar to the _Draft_ series that I have done before, but a little bigger - each drawing will be 2.5’ x 3.5’.
_Draft_ series: Draft 01, Draft 03, Draft 04, Draft 06, Draft 07, Draft 11
**Have you participated in any interesting collaborations? If so, what changed in your creative approach?
**I made two displays for a lifestyle brand WORM NY last year. _Out of Thick Air_ is on display at The Canvas in Williamsburg, while _Gross Grows_ will be utilized in pop-up events. In this project, instead of treating the making process as a way to develop a thesis, I focused on exploring the materials more than anything. Not entirely sure why, but the “thesis” just never emerged.
Gross Gros
Out of Thick Air
**How are you staying balanced in this time of chaos and change?
**I grew up in Hong Kong. My world has been turned upside down way before the pandemic. Even today, COVID is only one of the many devastating news I have to digest on a daily basis. And, as a foreigner here in America with a turmoil happening back home, so much seems to be at stake at the same time. I have to stay informed, so I don’t even have the luxury to “just not read the news”.
It seems, though, that chaos and change are the natural habitats for creativity, as least for me. I only hope that the outcome from living through all these would be meaningful.
**What is the main driving force of your art?
**The driving force is the slight chance of finding meanings - a bit like religion, I guess, but without the promise. Camus claimed that there were three ways to address the absurd: suicide, religion, and acceptence. I guess I am on the acceptance route.
**What do you hope you communicate to your viewers?
**For the better, I think, there isn’t really a clear concept during the making process. And so I don’t think there’s a definitive message to be conveyed through the work. I do hope that, in my next project, I will be able to curate an experience.
**Where can people view your work?
**A Fountain Head will be on display in a group show in Art MORA Gallery in New Jersey from August to September this year. Other than that, most of my works can be found on my website - [www.paul-mok.com](http://www.paul-mok.com/)
_A Fountain Head_ will be on display at Art MORA Gallery in NJ from August to September, 2020
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