Rather than painting by knowing, I paint by feeling – feelings are so abstract that when my brush meets the canvas a new world of colour comes flooding through.
Colours
December 2021
ACN: Sydney
Created on the 4th January 2019
This painting was the start of building a community for the Asian Creative Network (ACN: Sydney). We painted our hopes and dreams for 2019 while remembering the frustrations from the year before, driving our hopes.
A little about ACN: Sydney
The Asian Creative Network is a group dedicated to promoting connection, collaboration, and support for the Asian creative diaspora to relate and connect with each other. We all shared a similar story – we had goals and dreams, but because of our parents’ sacrifice for our better future, we could only pursue our passions on the side. We shared stories about our struggles, the lack of representation, the stereotyping and the general uphill battle to do what we love. And we found that we were not alone. We found variations on our own stories told through the lips of strangers, that there were so many more out there who understood that we didn’t create in spite of the fact we’re Asian but because of it. We are the Asian Creative Network. We span every discipline and every country. We create, and we are Asian. Our identities cannot separate the two. That is why we are called the Asian Creative Network.
Worldly Cynicism
October 2019
This canvas illustrates a narrative of burnout. Adrenaline is a hormone which can be translated into excitement or anxiety depending on an individual’s mental state; the darker colours emit small explosions of colour, corresponding to the bursts of excitement and anxiety in life, and the brighter colours express the pure joy so rarely felt. It is bright, but temporary. The image is slowly torn apart by a gold streak and cannot be repaired. It is burnout, but it is also hope that there is something, or someone, better waiting for you.
February 2018
My family’s celebrations of Lunar New Year got me particularly inspired to paint a portrait of such celebrations. While I largely enjoy delicious food with the extended family and red pockets, Firecracker looks beyond the joy of a food-centric community. What most people don’t stop to think about is the pollution made by setting off firecrackers – the fleetingness of a good show produces squalor no one likes to think about. The gold represents that glamour and the orange, a polluted red.
Abstract Sounds – Hybrid Media
December 2018
The inspiration for Pink Cellophane came from a song I co-produced with someone, which is also named Cellophane. This painting is a visual manifestation of the song and was designed to be viewed while listening to the song. Cellophane is about burning out – while the painting only tells one side of this story, it is not co-dependent on Grey Cellophane (the complimentary painting) as each voice tells a different story.
In the top left-hand corner, the journey to burning out begins. The female narrating the story becomes corrupted by the overwhelming busyness of over-commitment. She is exposed to all the appealing opportunities that come her way and happily accepts each opportunity. The colourful opportunities bloom but hide the sinister outcome of burnout, which becomes more tangible as she continues to pile up more burdens. What appears obvious to onlookers, is invisible to the one person that matters.
Both the painting and song ultimately serve as a social commentary and cautionary tale about those who cannot, or do not, see the value in saying, “no”.
To listen to the song, please click here.
First Impressions
2016
Focused on the Imperfect was designed as a tactile painting. As you meet someone for the first time, their appearance may not match their handshake. For example, a middle-aged woman dressed in expensive business attire would appear one way, but once you shake her hand you notice that it was calloused and did not reflect your first impressions of her. That hand reveals a history of childhood labour and hard work. This painting is the same – its appearance may or may not be misleading, the only way to know is to reach out to it.
Every line, vein and bump tells a story. It deals with the idea of first impressions and how misleading they can be.
Conceptual Art
2016
This painting is one of my earliest works and was inspired by the mythology of East Asian dragons.
水 