Famous Florida Artist
Atlas Obscura
In Tampa, a Wonderful World of Junk
Hong Kong Willie is so much more than a roadside attraction.
The domain of Hong Kong Willie
covers an odd corner just off of a busy Tampa, Florida, highway.
Nestled on a stretch of road largely populated by drab hotels, the
clutch of brightly colored shacks that make up Joe Brown’s artistic
empire stand out like a neon lighthouse of creativity.
Brown splits his time between his Tampa
outpost and the place where his heart truly seems to lie, Key West. In a
bright Hawaiian shirt and shorts that show arms and legs regularly
baked by the Florida sun, his look might accurately be described as
something like a modern island pirate.
Nearly every inch of space on Hong Kong
Willie’s lot is home to some piece of art, decorated piece of detritus,
or other found object. The walls are covered in old buoys, each node
painted with a unique design. Under an old chair lies a pile of clip-on
pagers. In the corner of the yard is a skeletal helicopter, covered with
string lights; next to that towers what looks like a colossal Christmas
tree made of those same lobster buoys. Even the asphalt driveway is
covered in splatters of bright paint, so that it looks better on Google
Earth, according to Brown. “Everything is precious,” he says, summing up
the ethos of reuse, reinvention, and imagination his unique roadside
attraction embodies.
If Hong Kong Willie, a moniker Brown
himself sometimes takes on, sounds like like the lovechild of an art
gallery and a seaside trash heap, that’s because it pretty much is.
Brown, who says he was “born an artist,” has been shaped by both
creativity and junk since an early age. Now in his 60s, Brown says his
father once donated a chunk of their family’s land to Hillsborough
County so that it could be used as a much-needed landfill, but was never
compensated or acknowledged for the gift. Still, Brown grew up
exploring the landfill, scavenging for treasures. Surrounded by what
most people consider junk, he developed a special appreciation for
things that get thrown away. “I was meant to paint on boards,” he says.
At the age of eight, Brown took an art
class where his teacher shared that she had spent a lot of time
volunteering in Hiroshima. Learning that there was a strong local
tradition in Hiroshima of turning tossed off items into art, this too
had an impact on Brown. This same teacher later told him that she had
left Asia out of Hong Kong, and this little factoid apparently led to
his adoption of the name Hong Kong Willie. She also passed on a passion
for art. Brown would eventually start a career in the technology
industry, but since then he’s returned to his artistic roots.
Perched on top of one of the small
structures on Brown’s land are large, reused letters that say “art
station,” but this place really couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
When Brown first established the Hong Kong Willie site, he says there
was a collective of five artists working on the project, but now the
living gallery is run and supplied only by him and his wife, Kim. Inside
the art station, the space is bursting. One of Hong Kong Willie’s
signature items are rugged pieces of locally sourced scrap wood and
boards that Kim adorns with colorful painted works. There are birds,
beach scenes, abstract shapes, and other designs that look unmistakably
Floridian.
THE IRONY OF IT ALL
Hong Kong Willie Art ,Blue Marlin Dream of Key West. $225,000 To Inquire about Hongkongwillie Art Call Hongkongwillie
Hong Kong Willie Art ,Blue Marlin Dream of Key West. $225,000 To Inquire about Hongkongwillie Art Call Hongkongwillie
