To kick off the new year, we meet some exciting creative talents in the world of fashion, makeup and design, including makeup artist Mandy Cheuk, one of winners at last year's World Bodypainting Festival, Vincent Cheang founder of fashion brand Worker Playground and Live Music Association (LMA), as well as some standout designers at the recent Macao Fashion Festival.
Body as Canvas


Fashion is all about making a statement, and when it comes to styling, the art of makeup is manifestly one of the key factors in the process of interpreting a certain idea, look or even identity. Not only can the right makeup style enhance one’s appearance, but it is also an excellent way to express one’s unique physical features and character.
Born in Shenzhen, makeup artist Mandy Cheuk grew up in Hong Kong and currently lives in Macau. And now she is considered a champion in the field, after winning a prestigious international makeup award at the renowned World Bodypainting Festival in July last year.
Somewhat surprisingly however, Mandy reveals that as a young girl, she was never really into makeup.
“But I was passionate about painting,” she says with an unmistakable flare in her eyes. “I love how colours can spread on a plain surface and create texture and mood.”
Born into a modest family who moved from Shenzhen to Hong Kong when she was just nine years old, Mandy has an elder sister and a younger brother.
“My sister was three years senior to me and I would follow her in whatever she did.”
As her sister took up drawing in school, Mandy also started to paint.
“My sister was my source of inspiration. But I did not just want to follow her, somehow, I wanted to surpass her.”
Competitive in her spirit to outdo the example set by her older sibling, Mandy went on from painting to find her own path in the design industry.
“My sister went to a design school in Hong Kong and I also wanted to try. But I did not want to do exactly the same thing as she did, which was fashion design, so I tried something else.”
Her initial choice was Styling, however, when she was filling out the application, she was told that there were no more available places in that course.
“The term ‘Makeup’ was a subcategory of Styling and I told myself, this could be a good choice since makeup is like painting, only that it’s not on paper but on one’s face!”
And indeed, the human body has since become Mandy’s canvas. At the design school in Hong Kong, Mandy had to learn from scratch.
“From makeup history to its application to its technical practices, we had to learn everything in three years,” she says.
Interestingly, Mandy explains that during the first year of study, they did not touch any makeup at all.
“Apart from the history of makeup, creative thinking was a big part of our foundational studies.”
Not particularly at ease with written studies, Mandy soon found herself feeling much more at home when she was finally introduced to actually painting faces with a brush in her hand.
“There are subtle nuances in one single technique. To paint a Smokey Eye for instance, the teacher would tell us the basic methods to do it and we would practice these techniques on each other’s faces. But I soon realised that every face is different. And the same technique should be applied differently according to different eyes.”
Having found her grip on the subtlety of makeup techniques, Mandy was eager to try out her skills. In her final year at the design school, Mandy met her mentor and teacher Karen Yiu.
“She was the first makeup artist who was doing bodypainting in Hong Kong and she opened my mind completely about makeup,” Mandy notes.
At the time Karen Yiu was looking for an assistant and Mandy decided to try her luck. And as fate would have it, Mandy was given an appointment almost immediately after applying to be an assistant to her mentor-to-be. Before she knew what was happening, Mandy found herself following Karen at the ferry terminal to travel to the America’s Next Top Model contest being filmed in Macau at the time.
“It was my very first experience of such an international event and it was amazing!”
Mandy recalls how Karen was demonstrating in front of her how to be a professional makeup artist and taught her how to handle all the tools.
“To see her in action like a master really inspired me to further continue my own path.”
After barely one year as Yiu’s assistant, another fateful event was in store for Mandy which linked her creative path fundamentally in Macau.
“Karen was initially invited to be the makeup designer for Franco Dragone’s Taboo show, but since she wasn’t able to stay in Macau all the time, she asked me to be the full-time makeup technician on site,” she says.
Ultimately, Karen did not stay on as the makeup designer for the show, and instead, Mandy arrived in Macau and stayed at the Taboo show for four years as their only makeup technician, taking charge of monitoring and teaching the dancers about their makeup requirements. It turned out to be a critical phase in her professional life.


“I had to learn fast and be independent since I was the only makeup technician on site. I had to execute in a very precise manner as well, because the show needed consistency and it was live every single time!” she recalls with excitement.
There was no time for error and Mandy went through the process of further refining her technical skills.
However, after four years, when the show eventually ended, Mandy also felt the need to go out on her own.
“They suggested that I stay and work for the House of Dancing Water, but I thought it was not a good idea for me because I wanted to go on my own creative path,” she says.
Mandy spent another four years travelling between mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau freelancing for different projects, and last year, she finally summoned the courage to tackle one of her biggest dreams: The World Bodypainting Festival in Austria.
“I had previously participated twice in this international competition, the first time with my teacher Karen as her assistant, and the second time on my own, right after I left Dragone. Both experiences were not so successful because I was lacking experience and was very nervous,” she admits.


But last year due to the pandemic, the festival announced it would hold an online version for the first time, allowing even more participants to enter the contest.
“The competition was even more intense because many more artists from all over the world were able to join online instead of physically travelling there,” she explains.
Mandy signed up for two categories, ‘Creative Makeup’ and ‘Rich Smokey’. Remarkably, she was awarded the title of champion in the latter category, from among hundreds of worldwide contestants, while in the former category she came in 13th place.
Mandy further explains that in ‘Creative Makeup’, last year’s theme was ‘Fashion Savage’, while ‘Rich Smokey’ was a new category. In both categories participants were required to design and execute an overall styling with costumes, makeup and hair design on a model. Each category competition took place over a duration of three hours, in which time the contestants were asked to upload photos to the official website online showing the process from beginning to end.
“My concept for ‘Rich Smokey’ was ‘Primary’. It was based on the primary colours in nature. The human body does not come with strong colours or patterns. That is perhaps why we love to use makeup so much!” Mandy laughs, adding, “So my work was inspired by a wild bird native to Eurasia, a pheasant which carries the colours of red, yellow and blue.”
The model’s body and hair was covered with white plaster, on which red feathers were implanted.
“The white plaster was like the human bone for me, and the red feathers were blood. I wanted to strip off the human body to its bone and blood, and then I painted the primary colours on the face to create a passionate and raw texture of human desire,” the artist explains.
As for the theme of ‘Fashion Savage’, Mandy created a work entitled Be Radiant.
“This work is based on oceanic creatures and I fabricated the costumes as if they were a jelly fish or something like that.”
Mandy explains that the human face in this case was almost emotionless, with metallic tears at the corner of the eyes.
“In recent years I feel as if we have been in suppressed conditions in which we are not allowed to stand out from the crowd. Creativity should be able to reflect collective human conditions and at the same time human uniqueness. We might be nobody in society, but individuality still reveals our radiance.”
And so the artist continues to shine in her unique profession. After her long-awaited and well-deserved award and international recognition, Mandy has not stopped exploring her creative path in Macau.
“During this pandemic, I have been staying here in Macau, which has been my home for the past 8 years, almost one third of my life. I love being in Macau, this place has not only provided me with professional experiences, but I have also made some life-long friendships. It is a place where I have learnt to be myself,” the makeup artist concludes.
Currently working on personal creative projects, Mandy continues to explore the human body as her canvas, on which she paints her colourful dreams with passion and emotions, impressive not only to the eyes, but also the mind.
In December, some of the city’s most talented fashion designers gathered at the annual Macao Fashion Festival to present their latest creative collections in an impressive display of style and colour.
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