Guangzhou may be a step behind the established art scenes of Shanghai and Beijing, but Chinese illustrator Tony Cheung doesn’t necessarily see it as a negative. He says, like many other first-tier cities in the country, Guangzhou is a materialistic place where the people are overly focused money, and that this ultimately leads to the marginalization of non-mainstream art. Since art isn’t seen as a lucrative career path, fewer people are interested in it. “Of course, less competition might make artists lazier and financially less successful,” he notes. “But the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere in Guangzhou’s art circle is really appealing to me.”
就城市的艺术发展来说，广州可能稍稍逊色于上海或北京，但中国插画家庄汤尼（ Tony Cheung ）并不认为这是一个缺点。他说，像中国许多一线城市一样，广州也是物质主义盛行的地方，这里的人重视金钱导致了非主流艺术的边缘化。由于艺术不是一门利润丰厚的行业，越来越少人对它感兴趣。“当然，竞争少了可能会让艺术家变得懒惰，在收入方面也不太理想。但是，广州艺术圈宁静和轻松的氛围很吸引我。”他说道。
This same sense of peacefulness, however, does not translate into Cheung’s work. His images are nightmarish and chaotic, rife with sexualized schoolgirls, mutating phalluses, and grisly acts of violence. But these grotesque scenes aren’t created just for shock value alone; it’s a way for him to deliver his message to a populace that he believes to have been largely desensitized by a bombardment of digital media. “Our daily life is so full of all kinds of violent productions like photos, movies, news reports, and even advertisements,” he says. “Our generation is so used to it, which means as an artist, you need stronger stimulation to attract people’s attention. So violence and sometimes sex is the way for me to satisfy myself and the viewer, but at the same time, it’s a reflection of our visual reality.”
尽管如此，庄汤尼的作品却不像这座城市一样平和。反之，他的画作演绎了各种噩梦般的混乱画面——摆弄性暗示动作的女孩、变异的性器、以及各样可怕的暴力行为。这些怪诞的场景并不单纯是为了冲击视觉而存在，更是他传递信息的方式。
他认为现在的观众因为泛滥的数字媒体而变得麻木不仁。他说：“我们每天的生活充满这么多暴力作品，照片、电影、新闻报道、甚至是广告。我们这一代人早已习已为常。这意味着，作为一个艺术家，你需要创造更强烈的刺激来吸引人们的眼球。所以有时我会借助暴力和色情来满足自己和观众。不过，与此同时，这些作品也是在反映我们见到的现实。”
The brutal violence of Cheung’s work is his way of pointing out certain societal injustices. “For me, violence as a word has been mostly used to describe physical harmful force, while spiritual or systematic violence are neglected,” he says. “Fewer people consider social injustice, sexism ideology, or class discrimination as violence as well. So I bring my criticism against all types of violence into my works, covering them with physical abuse and pleasure. In all, physical violence is just a metaphor for violence that is less visible.”
在庄汤尼的作品中，野蛮的暴力是他用来抨击社会不公的方式。“在我看来，暴力这个词大多被解释为实际上的身体伤害，而精神或制度上的暴力却被忽略了。”他说，“越来越少人意识到社会不公、性别歧视、或阶级歧视都是暴力。所以，我希望在作品中批评所有类型的暴力，将它们掩盖在身体虐待和愉悦之下。总之，身体暴力只是在隐喻其他形式的无形暴力。”
Even the hyper-sexualized girls that populate his works are more than they appear; at first glance, they might seem like twisted male fantasies, but what it requires is for viewers to look beyond the surface. From crying heads in lieu of breasts and limbless women, Cheung’s disturbing imagery intends to anti-fetishize the female form as a means of challenging a male-dominated society.
乍看之下，在他作品中那些被严重性化的女孩，似乎只是一幕男性扭曲的性幻想。但当你把眼光跳脱画面之外，哭泣的头部取代了乳房和截肢的女性，令人不安的画面旨在抗议物化女性的思想，以此作为挑战男权社会的一种手段。
Cheung’s art forces viewers to confront discomfort on many levels. He paints the ugliness of real life, and through these revolting visuals, he hopes to inspire critical thinking and change. “I don’t know if my works truly reflect the reality of things, but at least that’s what I try to achieve,” he shrugs. “Reality is not something that inspires me, but rather reality is something I care deeply about and feel eager to change.”
庄汤尼的艺术强迫观众去直面多种层次的不安。他描绘出现实生活中的丑恶，并希望通过这些骇人的视觉效果，激发人们的批判思考和改变作为。“我不知道我的作品是否真实反映了现实，但至少这是我尽力达成的目标。”他耸耸肩，“现实不是我的创作灵感，而是我非常关心，并且渴望有所改变的事情。”
