Meet Hui Li | Artist & Tutor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hui Li and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hui, what’s the end goal, career-wise?
Career wise, my end goal would be to pursue tattooing and open my own shop in the future. Although it is a non-traditional goal, I know it would fulfill me because I get to work for myself and be able to freely express my art.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My art tends to range in different styles. However, I think what sets me apart from others is that I tend to create pieces with a bit of symbolism embedded in certain artworks. Especially in my thesis, for example, I mainly used symbolism and iconography to create tattoo illustrations based on Dante’s Interno. Although I didn’t pursue a creative/artistic career, I was given quite a few amazing opportunities to sell my art at multiple conventions, such as MOCCA FEST and the Jersey Art Book Fair. Prepping for these conventions is never easy, and the only challenges would be if my art would sell and having enough stock to sell. Throughout my art journey, one lesson I’ve learned is that don’t be afraid to try something new. It can create new experiences to learn from. The only thing I would want the world to know about my art is that different styles of artwork are a lot of fun to produce.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
A week long trip itinerary would be a day trip to NYC since I live pretty close to The Big Apple. We would stop by Time Square and Koreatown for shopping and good food spots like BDC Tofu House. We can do karaoke there as well. The second day would consists of visiting central park and or The Museum of Natural History and grab a bite at La Pecora Bianca (don’t forget to get the sheep tiramisu.) For the third day, we will stay in New Jersey and visit Van Vleck House & Gardens in Montclair. Then head to downtown and eat at Mesob, an Ethiopian restaurant. Afterwards, we can stroll around downtown to shop and sightsee. The next day, we can visit the American Dream Mall for some mini golf and other activities as well. A perfect way to end the trip would be some relaxation, so we would head over to Sojo Spa Club for some treatments and massages to rejuvenate ourselves.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to give a shoutout to my middle school art teacher, Beth Federico, who essentially inspired me to get into art. She taught me all sorts of medium ranging from ceramics, acrylic painting, paper mache, watercolor, etc. Having these skills genuinely helped me navigate and figure out what art form I enjoyed the most. I discovered that I’m truly passionate about digital art, crochet, and pottery and they’re a few of my favorite hobbies to this day.

Website: https://hlixarts.wixsite.com/hlixart

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hlixart