An unexpected encounter with etching urged Wai Wong to pause his career in filmmaking and advertisement production, and he took a detour to study printmaking. After his MA training in Middlesex University, he further confirmed his passion in printmaking.
Wai was awarded The Gwen May Recent Graduate Award in 2018 and elected an Associate Member of the RE in 2021.
"I will say that I want to be a printmaker instead of an artist. More precisely, I want to be a craftsman or an artisan focusing on making prints. Ozu Yasujiro is my favourite movie director, and probably my favourite artist. In an interview, he once said, “I only know how to make tofu. I can make fried tofu, boiled tofu, stuffed tofu. Cutlets and other fancy stuff, that’s for other directors.” Because he spent his entire career to make nothing else but 'tofu' he made the best 'tofu'. Ozu probably did not consider himself as an artist, but a craftsman who repeatedly practice the same craft until he reached the perfection. This is what I want to be - a Tofu maker; a craftsman in printmaking. Except practicing the same craft repetitively and constantly, I do not know there is any other way to achieve perfection."