Kuma-sama (2024)

Felt, fabric paint, cotton

16.0 cm x 10.0 cm x 20.0 cm

Neko-sama (2024)

Felt, fabric paint, cotton

16.0 cm x 10.0 cm x 20.0 cm

usagi-sama (2024)

Felt, fabric paint, cotton

16.0 cm x 10.0 cm x 20.0 cm

Vending Fridge Bear (2024)

Felt, battery, aluminium foil

25.0 cm x 14.0 cm x 49.0cm 

Vending Fridge Bear (2024) is what you see as it is; a chocolate bear with the body of a fridge with vending machine as the door. It’s my dream to own such invention; 2 machines at the price of 1. At the door, you can purchase any type of ice cream. Craving for a banana split? Press the blue gummy bear button. Want a tub of ice cream? Simply press the green button. Not enough? Open the door to choose a range of ice cream of a larger scale. 

Standing close to half a meter, this sculpture symbolizes irony and contradictions. The fridge is meant to preserve food by keeping its internal temperature cool, as a result of exothermic reactions in its system, its external feels warm. Wouldn’t the chocolate bear melt eventually? In life, we want as many good outcomes as possible, yet there’s no such thing as guaranteed happiness. There will definitely be something to sacrifice.

Moreover, why spend a couple of cents and dollars at the vending machine when you could have opened the door to get your ice cream? Our human brain is complex; apart from its different parts that serve different purposes, our thoughts does not always translate to actions. Sometimes when we said we wanted something in our mind, we would verbally say something else. Often, when we don’t address what our subconscious’ desire, we would have contradictory actions.

Nevertheless, this art piece celebrates the complexity of our human experience as humans have achieved wonders as a result of our persistence, creativity and future-forwardness. 

Timeframe (2023)

Felt, cotton, glass, UV resin

7.5 cm x 5.0 cm x 10.0 cm

Timeframe (2023) portrays a mermaid with taiyaki as her tail and ice cream as her hair and top. A sky castle floats on her chest with headless body dangling below the clouds. This sculpture symbolises how humans structure their day according to the man-made invention; the calendar.

ice cream girl series ii-vi (2024)

Felt, acrylic paint, stainless steel, glass, plastic

23.0 cm x 4.0 cm x 23 cm (without chain)

The Ice Cream Girl series consists of 7 paintings of girls with hair made from ice cream. These acrylic paintings on felt give a tactile visual experience, especially the thick paint mimicking ice cream. The focus theme embraces individuality of each girl and signifies the temporality of youth, just like how ice cream would eventually melt away with time.

The borders are decorated with pompoms, decoden and handmade embroidered embellishments. These embroidery were made at the start of my artistic journey when I first started experimenting with felt fabric. Back then, I was just sewing facial features on flat cat head shaped felt pieces. Personally, they were considered my ‘failures’ and “too ugly” to be seen by the world. However, over time, I realised those were considered ‘successes’ in the past,  but after leveling up, they are now graded as ‘failures’. It dawned on me that we need both failures and successes to continue growing. 

The juxtaposition between the handmade embroidered felt pieces and readymade decoden represents the openness to receive help. Just like most artists, I have very specific visualisation of my artworks and prefer to be 100% involved in the art-making process. However, we have to make sacrifices in our health and time if we do not dedicate tasks. Sometimes, getting external inputs can create unexpectedly pleasant results. At the same time, including those factory-made decorative pieces further amplifies the uniqueness of my handcrafted embroidery.