Hong Kong-born, London-based illustrator and artist Lily Kong builds a world of fragmented landscapes across mono-printing, lino, riso and drawing, bringing them together in a handbound artist book made during residency at London Centre for Book Arts.
The starting point was a need to slow down. Since 2023, Lily Kong had been running client projects at pace, planning efficiently and moving quickly from brief to finish line. Sweet Escape began as the deliberate opposite of that: a personal project with no plan, no finish line and no expectation of what would come next.
“I wanted to see what other things will happen in the gaps if I take things slower,” she says. “That was the point.”
The project works iteratively and intuitively. A few block prints lead to a question about what she likes in them, which leads to either a better version or an expansion into a different method. Almost every decision is made without planning, which inherently slows the process and keeps it genuinely open. The result across lino block printing, mono-printing, riso and drawing is a body of fragmented landscape work that carries the particular quality of things made without a destination: unhurried, absorptive, full of the accumulated detail that efficiency would have cut.
The drawing process has its own logic. Kong gathers references from photographs, colour palettes and photobooks until a blurry picture forms in her mind, just clear enough to guide a pen across paper without fully determining what the image will become. “I try my best to draw what I see,” she says, “and that blurriness is what keeps the drawing honest.”
The risoprinted, handbound artist book made during her 2024 residency at London Centre for Book Arts brings the project into a more structured form. Landscapes from sunsets by the sea to bright mountain days are gathered into a 15-edition book whose every detail, the embossed title, the dimensions, the binding method, is carefully chosen to create what Kong describes as a doorway into escape. The book is not currently for sale, but her digital prints are available through Drool Art.
Lily Kong is a London-based illustrator and artist originally from Hong Kong. Her work explores nostalgia, joy and the emotional textures of familiar, comforting moments.
ARTIST LINKS
lilykong.co.uk
@lilykongyuet
drool-art.com/collections/lily-kong
Sweet Escape, 2023 to 2024. Mono-printing, lino block printing, riso printing, drawing, handbound book. Edition of 15. Risoprinted book created during residency at London Centre for Book Arts, 2024. All works copyright © Lily Kong, 2024.
