Riva Tung

Fine Art

My studio practice concentrates on the intersections of reality, fantasies, and subconsciousness, exploring how we, as anthropomorphic creatures and intangible concepts, are inscribed within personal growth to the stereotypical norms. By depicting symbolic imagery through fragmented perspectives, I attempt to capture the obscurity of anthropomorphic figures and their beautiness, as something that resists immediate recognition, unfolding through movement and the viewer’s changing position.

The characteristics and material qualities of acrylic paint are explored by applying it to different media and allowing them to absorb. My process combines traditional paint on canvases, with tangible three-dimensional objects attached to works such as paper mache and sewing threads, in order to explore how the space is involved with the work, and digital painting as a supportive medium for illustration. I often build multiple paintings and collages, and filtered found images by using a fluorescent but vaporous palette in figures to suggest travel between virtual and reality.

Influenced by the mixture/interactions between original Hong Kong culture and Japanese anime pop culture from my childhood, my style combines with cuteness, manga-like, but at the same time a touch of realistic feature, especially depicting feminine figures in my works reflecting impressions on fictional females made within this hybrid visual ecology, I developed an understanding of images, events and experiences, series and literatures, are not only as aesthetic objects, but as affective agents that mediate emotion, identity, and belief.

Umbilical, mixed media (acrylic on canvases, yarn), 800 × 350 mm, 2025

Reading School of Art