We have a celebrity in the house. She was featured on CNN, CNBC, Good Morning America, and all major cable TV network in the USA. She has a YouTube video with nearly 800,000 views! The Artist Without A Paintbrush as she calls herself, Miss Hong Yi, dropped by our studio for her portraits when she was back in Kota Kinabalu for a break.

This Sabah-born gal is a full-time, gainfully employed architect working in Shanghai. She’s famous because she has captured the imagination of the world with her unique large scale artwork.

It all started in Nov 2011 when she created the portrait of renowned Chinese artist Ai WeiWei using just sunflower seeds. Two months later, she posted her new project on her blog – it was a portrait of Yao Ming, China’s biggest sports export, “drawn” with a dribbling basketball covered in red paint.

A day after Valentine’s Day this year, she revealed yet another portrait on her blog. This time, it was of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou. Medium? Coffee cup stain rings.

After creating so many portraits of other people, it’s about time someone created portraits of Hong Yi. We chatted a bit before our shoot. It’s great Hong Yi has some clear ideas. Our goal was to photograph something safe/conventional, something cool, something raw and something fun.

Round one – you can’t get any safer than a black turtle neck. Then Hong Yi slipped into a dress and we experimented with her shedding her friendly smile and adopting a bit more attitude. Next, bare shoulders and messy hair gave her a more vulnerable and raw look. Finally, it was Hong Yi having some fun with colours!

Interesting fact – Hong Yi was an intern here at Louis Pang Photography three years ago. The artist without a paintbrush finally found one, in our studio!

p/s Hong Yi will be speaking at the 2012 Creative Asia Conference in Hong Kong this July.