Shades And Hues

Tell us more about what you do for work.
I work at the ArtScience Museum as an Education Specialist, so in a nutshell, I do tours, workshops, content creation, and stuff like that. I actually came in a week before the Circuit Breaker started in 2020, so I would like to count my blessings, because at least I got employed before it happened (laughs).

Is this something you’ve always wanted to do?
I’ve always wanted to be in the art or creative industry, because that’s what I studied in school, so I would like to still be in it.

I’m just an individual, but I feel like each person can always make a difference, especially in the arts scene. I mean, the arts scene in Singapore is really small, but it’s getting bigger as compared to before. I’m very sure that there’s more potential to it lah, so I want to be someone who can try to make a difference in this aspect, or at least be a part of it, you know?

What first drew you to the arts?
I would say I’m very influenced by my dad and uncle who both do art, so it has always been in my upbringing. My dad does it on the side because he enjoys it, but my uncle really does create his own art and experiments a lot with music, which is really nice. I also have some cousins who are into art as well.

I think it’s pretty common, especially for Asian countries, to see it as something that you can’t go far with. I just want to prove that belief wrong, and show that I can still make a living out of it. It doesn’t have to be the starving artist way. Nothing against that though; if you want to go for it, sure, go crazy man, but you know, there’re many paths to it. It’s not a one-way route.

Also, art is a very big thing. There are so many different categories of it, and I feel like no matter what it is, it will still be beautiful to me. I mean, art is everywhere, man (laughs).

Do you have an art practice of your own?
I’m more into mixed media, so I don’t just focus on one medium—I like to venture out and do more. I wouldn’t say I’m that amazing in any of it, for sure, because I still have so many things to learn, but in terms of comfort, I’ll always go back to the traditional 2D-pencil-on-paper kind of thing.

I’m like, a very sentimental person, so I involve a lot of my emotions, and the emotions of people around me, in my art. I generally like to focus more on solitude and solitariness. These two words are pretty much the same thing, but it goes deeper than that. How I see it is that solitude is bliss and involves the soul, but solitariness involves your physicality.

Being in solitude isn’t something that’s easy to do, because to be at ease and at peace with yourself, and to be alone with yourself is tough. And then there’s solitariness where it’s either people have pushed you aside and you don’t have a choice but to live with it, or you’re just being isolated. So having a balance between both is really important, because if one is more than the other, that’s when chaos happens (laughs).

Tell us a bit more about your tattoos.
I have one that’s kind of personal, which I won’t talk about (laughs), but otherwise, I like to have my tattoos with zero meaning. Because for me, it’s like as long as I find a design appealing, I will go for it.

And also, this is very subjective, but I just feel like for me, if I were to have a tattoo with a meaning attached to it, it would be very hard for me to move on. I mean, it can go both ways you know? Like you can say “Oh, yeah if there’s a meaning behind it, then it’s like you’re accepting it as a part of yourself.” But I guess we all work in different ways. For me it’s like, if it’s something bad, I wouldn’t want it on me, because I just feel like then I won’t be able to move forward, because it’s still clinging on to me. So I’d rather not. Besides, I’m all about that good juju now (laughs).