Peter Yuill might just be responsible for the most acute visual delineations of the post-industrial beauty of Hong Kong's urban landscape, but the Canadian artist started his career not so much painting buildings as painting on them.
The beautiful Japanese inks of his "Central Project" series transformed often ignored, grey urban areas into wire-frame Edens of glorious faded intensity. Then there were the madly detailed, photorealistic steampunk machine drawings of his "Fading Glory" pieces. Those gave way to a more abstract sensibility inspired by the symbols of European pagan religions, but it was buildings, and specifically daubing on them, that first bit him with the artistic bug.
Originally from just outside Toronto, Yuill became a graffiti artist aged 15, although he admits "artist" might be pushing it a bit. "Really it was what would be classified as pure vandalism. I just loved it - climbing buildings, walking around on rooftops, getting into train yards at night; it was one of the best times of my life. I was a rebellious teenager. I got arrested about 20 times, but I was never caught red-handed and so I was never charged."
