She started with free portraits of strangers on Hong Kong streets. Then built a brand
Cherry Yeung started handing out sketches to spread positivity. Now, her Cute Soulz project includes a doll that represents a person’s inner child
“I want to remind people that, even when you don’t feel it, you are loved, and you are seen,” says Cherry Yeung, the founder of Cute Soulz, a fledgling art and wellness project that has amassed more than 112,000 Instagram followers to date.
The brand’s signature character is a small, flower-like doll that Yeung calls the “Little Inner Child”. It lives in everyone’s heart, she says, but is too easily neglected when life becomes a blur of deadlines and commutes.
Cute Soulz products range from keychains to figurines and come in different colours or emotions aside from its classic sunflower-yellow: healing, hopeful and courageous.
Yeung’s mission is to coax a little more emotional honesty out of one of the world’s most fast-paced cities.
But before there were products, the project was much simpler: a pencil, a sketchbook and a girl walking up to strangers with a drawing.
‘I was mentally prepared for criticism’
On the MTR, in a bustling market or outside a restaurant, Yeung sits with her sketchbook, scanning the crowd. She spots a stranger, often someone not smiling or lost in the grind of work, and starts to draw.