This story by Kelly Ho originally appeared on Global Voices on November 1, 2025.
If you glance at Steven Tang’s Instagram account, you may think he is a food influencer. His posts mostly feature signature local dishes from Hong Kong: roasted meat rice, egg tarts, instant noodles with luncheon meat, you name it.
But if you squint your eyes and look closely, you will be impressed to learn that they are, in fact, all hand-drawn by the 26-year-old Hong Kong artist.
Since its creation in 2018, Tang’s Instagram page has attracted more than 45,000 followers. Many commented that his artworks made them “drool,” while others praised the realistic appearance of his drawings.
Tang is a self-taught artist who never received formal art training. He told Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) that he had not expected that drawing with coloured pencils would transform his childhood hobby into a profession.
A foodie, Tang began sharing food art as a way to make his favourite dishes come alive on paper. His first artwork to gain public attention was published in 2018: a bowl of Yunnan-style rice noodles from the popular local restaurant chain TamJai.
Since then, he has been invited to take part in group exhibitions, some of which were specifically themed around food-related realist art. He was featured in Art Central in 2023 and the Affordable Art Fair last year.
Despite how lifelike Tang’s work looks, he said, it is not exactly “real.”
The artist sometimes takes photos of food for reference. Or, he buys food and brings it to his studio to compose the “ideal” version of the dishes. He may make changes to the form and structure of the food to make it more visually pleasing.
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When drawing a plate of siu mei rice (燒味飯) — a Cantonese dish featuring steamed rice and roasted meat — Tang added some char siu (barbeque pork 叉燒) pieces without actually buying them because it was too hard to find perfect-looking barbecued pork, he said. This way, his drawing would not be dictated by how the chef prepared the dish.
“Whether you have the ability to ‘make stuff up’ depends on your experience, meaning how many times you have drawn that item before,” he said in Cantonese.
Some dishes Tang personally loves may not appear on the drawing paper, such as those “slathered with sauces on top,” because they may not look visually inviting. He has to consider what “can sell” when making a drawing, the artist said.
Tang was inspired to create drawings of everyday Hong Kong cuisine partly to share his passion for food with the world and partly because he was worried that some dishes might “disappear” one day, especially in a city where store closures are not uncommon.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong graduate made a drawing of a two-dish rice meal from a campus canteen he visited all the time when he pursued a bachelor’s degree in computer science. The eatery has since shuttered, and he has not been able to find the same taste elsewhere.
“Some people may say that taking a photo is enough, but I think making a drawing renders it more memorable. I think it is quite meaningful to capture the tastes that may be disappearing through my drawings,” he said.
Having shared realistic food art for over seven years, Tang admits he sometimes struggles to come up with creative ways to present familiar Hong Kong food. He previously drew the famous “pork patty mountain rice” (肉餅山飯) dish from a grassroots eatery, Man Shing Restaurant (民聲冰室), in the shape of Lion Rock, as well as dim sum dishes on skewers.
Keeping his creative juices flowing is not easy, Tang said. Apart from meticulously designing the composition of the drawing, he also has to spend more time and effort planning the presentation of his work on social media.
He used to post time-lapse videos documenting his creative process, which attracted a lot of engagement when he first started his creative journey.
However, with content algorithms changing over the years, Tang finds it more challenging to promote his work. To make his art look more interesting, he has been incorporating real-life utensils, such as bamboo sticks and chopsticks, when he makes short videos to attract more attention on Instagram.
Tang’s biggest challenge yet is finding time to run his own drawing studio and teach classes. He used to spend hours on his pieces, sacrificing sleep, but now he often feels too exhausted.
He said many full-time artists work closely with a gallery and dedicate all of their time to creating new pieces instead of teaching.
He understands this may be the step he needs to take if he wishes to advance his career as an artist, but he is not ready to give up teaching yet, especially since he is unsure whether he can make a living simply by relying on art sales.
“The art market may not necessarily like my work, so it is a gamble,” he said.
The artist has big plans for next year, as he will undertake his first-ever solo exhibition in September. He will need to create more than 10 new drawings for the show.
Tang also wants to revive his Cantonese language YouTube channel, which has been dormant for over five years, and continues to fill the gap in drawing tutorials.
As artificial intelligence (AI) technology continues to advance, many machines have been able to recreate images based on prompts asking for specific artist styles. When asked if he feels the rise of AI threatens his work, Tang is confident that successful artists would not lose their value.
What emerging artists like himself must do nowadays is to build a unique personal brand that allows the audience to distinguish their artworks from those generated by AI, he said.
“AI perhaps can generate a painting by Van Gogh, but you will not think that his work is worthless because of AI,” he said. “I hope that one day, when people talk about colored-pencil artists in Hong Kong, I will be the first name that comes to their mind.”
(SY)
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