The Hong Kong-born artist was an apprentice of Fan Zideng, one of the ink art maestros in China, and he has been fascinated with dragon horses since he was seven years old. And he expanded his horizons when he was exposed to western art and design concepts during his studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. After that, Ma settled in Shanghai.

Early in his career as an artist and designer, Ma created realistic sculptures of horses. Over the years, besides blending eastern and western technique, he also experimented with incorporating neon light installations, calligraphy and ink paintings into his horse and dragon artworks. Ma takes great pride in his collaborations with international brands and exhibitions, including the 2013 Venice Biennale, which he says are “great occasions of cultural exchange between a Chinese artist like myself and western entities”.

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The idea to start a new series of minimalistic, Drago Cavallo designs came to Ma when he returned to Hong Kong for four months in 2021 and felt the need to bring positive energy to the pandemic-stricken world. However, he was disappointed to find the price is what people focused on most when talking about art: “But art isn’t supposed to be just something you put on a wall. Can we not talk about money but how one can appreciate art or the meaning and purpose of art first?”

In May 2022, Ma and business leaders Edwin Chuang and Richard Lo set up the DC Charity Foundation, an art-focused charity that supports underprivileged children and teenagers through art activities. One of the major projects under this initiative was the Drago Cavallo. Travel around HK exhibition in July 2022, which was backed by The Hong Kong Jockey Club. For this, Ma produced 1,000 plain white, chihuahua-sized fibreglass Drago Cavalloes with no eyes and mouths, and worked with NGOs to invite children from different family and ethnic backgrounds, including those living with various conditions such as autism or visual impairment, to paint the Drago Cavalloes. “It may seem hard to believe that the visually impaired can paint”, he says. “But I want to show that everyone is equal in their dreams to create and express.”

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The artist observed that there were controlling parents who wanted to make sure their children painted the “perfect” Drago Cavallo even when he hadn’t set out any rules. “Some of the parents were even holding their kids’ hands and the kids were crying”, he says. “Let the children do whatever they want. Why do we need criteria? Why don’t we let them unlock their creativity?”

Ma also reaches out and visits youth detention centres to spread his message of creativities and appreciating art for just being art. “I want to use art to touch the hearts of juvenile offenders, to help them through difficult times and find their purpose in life again.”

On March 18, there will be another painting competition that Ma hopes to reach around 60,000 children participating and painting white fibre glass horses. The 600 winning pieces, to be selected by a panel of 18 artists, are expected to be displayed in Central’s Exchange Square.

But Ma has decided that he wants to touch hearts and minds beyond Hong Kong. In fact, he wants to spread the message of love, harmony and inclusion to the rest of the world with his seven-month-long world tour that is currently taking place. When Tatler visited the first stop of his exhibition in Shanghai in February this year, Ma had amassed 169 Drago Cavalloes painted by students from Changzhou, Nanjing and Hong Kong. They will be showcased there alongside Ma’s own artworks until August. Ma also organised a painting workshop for his time in Shanghai, and he has invited 25 consulate generals and children from around the world to the workshop to paint the dragon horses. “I want to gather more people from around the world to do something meaningful together”, he says.

After that, his next stop will be Beijing, where the exhibition is expected to open in April. But Ma’s message of love and compassion extends beyond art: he is also working with the Turkish consulate general in Shanghai, who took part in the February event, to donate two million boxes of resources to Turkey, where two powerful earthquakes in February led to vast destruction of its cities.

“The world is messed up: wars, Covid, earthquakes and fights. It needs more positivity and art is a great way to deliver that”, he says. “Art is not a matter of taste but an attitude to life.”

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