Tsz Kam: Luxury, Beauty, and the Kraft to Androgyny

A few months ago, on my way to see the “Transmission” show at Co-Lab Project’s (@colabprojectstx) outdoor space, I took a happy detour and stumbled into Co-Lab’s indoor gallery. There I found four walls of delicious Texan culture- and food-related works by Austin contemporaries like Alexis Mabry (@a.e.mabry), Megan Shogan (@vaultstoneshop) and Suzanne Wyss (@suzannewyss). Then I saw it: A brilliantly- and technically-executed painting of macaroni noodles. I had previously ogled these beautiful noodles on Instagram, but now they were hanging in front of me, in the flesh. This magical macaroni acrylic painting was the work of Tsz Kam, an Austin painter. Much like the artist Kaws (@kaws), Tsz joyfully tightropes the line between brand identity and contemporary art, producing colorful and illustrative work ranging from large-scale murals to tiny enamel pins. Tsz’s work uses bright colors to find freedom and resolve in the gray areas between fantasy, virtuality and identity.

TK: The (Co-Lab) show was called “Texas Toast.” It was a group show of food-themed work. I miss making work on paper and on a smaller scale. I made some last year slightly bigger than those, but now I’ve just moved onto using a different surface, so there’s not that same delicacy. 

CA: How did the hanging tapestry series come to be?

TK: I collaborate with Nat Power (@natpowertat) through a collective duo called Big Chicken and Baby Bird. She came up with the idea that we can make really large work if it's soft and can roll up, since we don’t have storage space. She started her own paintings on clear vinyl (the stuff that people cover their furniture with), but later on we found out the vinyl would crack under certain temperatures. I still liked the idea of making scrolls, so I decided to investigate to see if I can use fabric, but we both agreed we don’t like canvas since the tooth on it is so rough. I decided to use Egyptian Cotton which is like 1500 thread count (laughs) it's the closest thing you can get to paper. 

CA: How did you connect with Nat (of Big Chicken and Baby Bird)?

TK: We know each other from school at UT (The University of Texas at Austin). We met mostly through smoking ('cause you know you got to smoke outside), but also because we were both more interested in the illustrative side of things. UT is very conceptual. Sometimes the work doesn’t have to be about how good of a drafter you are, it can be about the process. We both can appreciate work like that but at the same time we became artists because... we just like to draw shit (laughs). 

Later on I was mostly depressed, because I came out of a school that said art has to be this way. I really enjoyed my time there, but now I’m out in the real world and have to take what I learned and figure out what I want to do that makes me happy. Everything I was making I wasn’t happy with, but I was still making things, because if I didn’t I’d be super unhappy. I was washing dishes, I was babysitting. It’s already hard enough trying to figure out who I want to be. And do I leave here (Austin)? I already have a life here. It’s confusing times, not good for creativity in general. But I went through it. I was still making stuff, not liking most of it for about a year. 

I craved that art school environment so I started having critique groups at my house. I invited Nat. Later on the whole thing fizzled out but I reconnected with her. It fosters a certain something when you're around people that care about making things with a certain dedication. There was a pivotal moment: She designed a book cover for a poetry chat book called Ice Cream Social and they asked her to do live-printing on their anniversary. She asked me if I knew anybody, I said “I don’t know. Everyone has a job except for me,” (laughs Tsz). So I went and helped her because I had time. I was hauling giant equipment of screen printing stuff (and) I think it showed her I’m reliable (and that) I show up for stuff. I told her “There’s something I really want to work on with you and I think we should go for it.” Then I got invited to ARTBASH 2017, it was an emergency slot with more room than expected so I invited Nat. So we started from there: (she) invited me, (I) invited her.

CA: Some people are struggling with making work during the Shelter-in-Place order, What mental states drive you creatively?

TK: It doesn’t matter what I’m feeling, that’s irrelevant, I just do it. I guess I’m happy looking at the whole thing afterward. I do a lot in retrospect looking back at what I made, I put it all in a puzzle and try to make sense of it all.

Making meaning is really important to me. Human beings are meaning-making machines, We need meaning, that’s how our brains work. We need narratives, it’s linear. So I like using that as a tool to make an impact on people (and) help them realize they can experience the things I experience when I am making: the liberty to have your own identity and your own story that you’re important. Not just your own experience. Experience is cumulative and there is some kind of freedom in understanding how that made you.

CA: Tell us about your subject matter, specifically the sculptures and plants.

TK: I’m a part of that niche in illustration from our generation that’s curious about fantasy spaces, not completely fantasy, just a luxurious environment. Millennials, we love materials we grew up with--so much crap. But in actuality so many of us are broke and can’t afford to make the fantasy space. I’m broke but I can draw it (laughs).

Nat got me into plants. I feel like they have a lot of personality. Especially the ones that don’t flower. 

CA: Why the ones that don’t flower?

TK: Flowers are feminine and I have feelings about being feminine and not being feminine. I don’t identify as being a woman specifically.

CA: How do you Identify and does your gender-identity appear in your work?

TK: I identify as nonbinary or gender queer. Yeah, a little bit. The Macaroni are androgynous.  It’s like a human body to the most simplified form because it (has) two holes and it’s connected. They are also curved and look kind of depressed but also funny at the same time, they are just like people. 

CA: How has the internet impacted your work?

TK: I started being on the internet when I was 12. Nat and I talked about how we both played Neo Pets and the idea of how virtually playing house and the internet culture was important to us as queer kids. The internet from an early age was how we practiced forming our identity. There are a lot of colors that we use: Magenta, cyan, the basic MS Paint can, the colors that aren’t real because they are illuminated by the (computer) screen.

CA: Does the virtual world translate into your current interest in luxurious spaces? 

TK: Yes, and also the fact that my parents worked at a nightclub (in Hong Kong) when I was little and sometimes they had to take me to the nightclub on the weekends. There were a lot of mainstream famous people there that no one liked anymore because they don’t speak up for the people, but anyway… It was such a nice place, but at the same time I understood what goes on there. It activated my very early imagination for sexuality and gender.

CA: What are your current ideas about identity and beauty?

TK: I remember, as a child, my mom’s friends at work asking me if I thought I’d get plastic surgery. I was five years old. It's one of my earliest memories. Here (the U.S.) we all look so different that we have to perceive beauty differently. I’ve been called names by other people of Chinese descent, being told I have “internalized racism.” How do I have internalized racism when I’m literally just trying to find beauty in myself in the way I look, without changing it, without plastic surgery. Culturally in the West even people that are perceived as ugly in their own culture can look so differently here. It’s a beautifulness that comes from exoticness and that’s a part I have to struggle with: Am I beautiful because I’m exotic or am I actually beautiful. What is actual beauty? I think my relationship with it is the most important thing. As artists we deal with beauty--it’s an ongoing thing that will change over time--but having that mindset of “always figuring it out” changes my relationship with beauty outside of myself as well. 

CA: Words of wisdom for growing creatives?

TK: Talk to people and don’t be afraid. Don’t let what you learn impede you, always go forward knowing you can synthesize it. 

CA: Have you thought about going to grad school?

TK: Yeah, if it's a full ride. Only Yale though (breaks into laughter).

Follow Tsz Kam on Instagram (@tszkam_art) and check out their website and Etsy shop.