Meet the Artist: James Prosek

In the up-coming exhibition To See the Forest and the Trees, Asia Society Hong Kong Center invites artist James Prosek to create a 50+foot mural of Hong Kong’s biodiversity in the Chantel Miller Gallery. Based on field research and consultation with local ecologists, the mural depicts Hong Kong’s diverse flora and fauna from the mountains to coastal mangroves and invites the audience to think about the co-existence of nature and urban city in the contemporary world.

This evening conversation will reveal the research and artistic process behind Prosek’s newly commissioned mural as well as his career as a naturalist, writer and artist. Prosek's publications and illustrated books will be available for viewing at the event. Read more here Hidden Forests >> Store. 

James Prosek, the American artist, is famed for his veristic, intricate and detailed portrayal of natural creatures. His best known work is Trout: An Illustrated History, published at the age of 19 when he was still studying English Literature at Yale. It features seventy of his watercolor paintings of the trout of North America. Gifted with multifaceted talents, Prosek has been striving to celebrate biodiversity of the natural world and promote awareness of the species’ endangerment through, not only painting, but also writing and filmmaking. He has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Compleat Angler. Prosek also co-founded a conservation initiative called "World Trout" with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard to raise funds for coldwater habitat conservation.

The exhibition is made possible with generous support from Burger Collection, Hong Kong and Boris Yeung and Amy Ng. Additional support is provided by Moiz Zilberman, Pegi and Michael Touff, and Rosewood Hong Kong.