For years, Hong Kong-based Swedish illustrator Andreas von Buddenbrock, also known as “The Ink Trail”, has been filling sketchbook after sketchbook with detailed ink drawings capturing places and people in the city, from wet and meat markets to abandoned buildings and nature trails.
Close to a photographic journey, his book The Ink Trail: Hong Kong offers a selection of drawings made on-site from 2017 to 2023, as well as personal anecdotes and thoughts about the artist’s unique creative process.
Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Andreas has been drawing for as long as he can remember. “When grownups asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say Disney cartoonist!” he said to us.
After graduating from BASIS School of Art in Stockholm in 2011, he went on to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Hong Kong, and the U.S. (Savannah and Atlanta, GA). Following his graduation in 2015, Andreas worked as an assistant to Swedish sculptor Anders Krisár in Manhattan, New York, before training as a Gallery Associate at MoMA.
Today, Andreas spends his time working as a freelance illustrator in Hong Kong, creating images for editorial, commercial, private, and educational clients. Since 2016, his works have been exhibited in Hong Kong (Affordable Art Fair, AIA Carnival, The Fringe Club, etc), as well as in Paris, Madrid, Prague, Melbourne, among others.
Working with a collection of fine-liner ink pens, Andreas aims to capture the ambience of Hong Kong sceneries and the personality of the local people. His love for black and white imagery drives him to constantly evolve his realistic drawing style, focusing even more on contrasts and textures.
The nature, the hiking trails, the modern abandoned buildings… all are a treat to sketch for Andreas and the quintessence of the book. Hong Kong people are playing a big part in the drawings, partly due to the nature of his drawing process where he spends a lot of time on a location interacting with people. “I try to keep the subjects of my sketches varied and I’ve always found the portrayal of people to be a fun challenge. For my book, I felt it only natural to include drawings of the people that inhabit and make up the city,” he explains.
Some of Andrea’s favorite things to draw are the old buildings and objects that have been subjected to time and neglect. The overgrown ruins of an abandoned building in Ma Wan, tied up old ship ropes on a beach in Kat O or a motorbike on the side of the road in Lohas Park… they all are a reminder of time’s constant presence and insatiable hunger.
Divided into three chapters, Concrete Jungle, Mother Nature, and Faded Memories, the book, not only brings together dozens of sketches, but also texts to explain some of the scenes he has captured, as well as anecdotes.
In the Concrete Jungle chapter, Andreas explains how he found Hong Kong to be different from other cities when he first arrived. For him, the towers and buildings, both modern and crumbling, intertwined with nature, are a “symphony of impressions”. These impressions are at the centre of his drawings, often rendered with a cinematographic perspective. When sketching a scene from the upper deck of a tram—three passengers sitting behind one another—he draws the shape of a tram window around the sketch, to create a close-up view effect for the reader.
Nature is highlighted in the second chapter with almost no signs of human life in most of the sketches. “The Explorer” in Happy Valley depicts overgrowth and mossy trees with an old stone bridge tucked away in the background. Each sketch in this chapter shows a different scene, like a waterfall, rocky hills, boulders and little stone towers.
In Faded Memories, the reader will certainly feels transported through time. Crumbling ruins in Mau Wu Shan, a fallen motorcycle in Lohas Park covered with vines… All these remains can only spark for the reader questions and impressions about the time passing and the past.
A coffee table book, a travel diary, a guide… this book is all of this at once, but mainly, this is a love letter to Hong Kong, as well as an homage to the local ink culture.
The Ink Trail: Hong Kong by Andreas von Buddenbrock
96 pages – Hardback with jacket – 80 black-and-white ink drawings
Available online at Blacksmith Books and at bookstores across Hong Kong