The overarching concept for this project was my emotional response to people and things around me.

Most of these are created based on a piece of my memory.

Here’s a description for each emotion:

  JOY

Since young i loved sketching and doodling. When i was younger I actually drew on the walls of the house. My mother told me that when I was a baby, the first thing I picked up was a marker. Since that very day I started vandalising every single wall in the house. The entire wall was covered, up to my height, with doodles. As I grew taller I continued vandalising the walls LOL.#sorrynotsorry

Luckily my parents did not scold me for doing that and chose to repaint the walls instead.

Doodling on the wall was an enjoyment and brought joy to my life. I am also extremely happy that they did not stop me from drawing on the wall. If they did I would not be the me today.

For this piece I dampened the paper by placing it under running tap water. After that i added diluted Chinese ink and blew at it using hot gun. To be very honest I was feeling desperate and wanted to give up at this moment. Surprisingly I got an interesting pattern that reminded me of my happy days in childhood.I loved drawing snails on the wall and this print looks just like what

IT LOOKS JUST LIKE IT.

(sadly I do not have a photo of the original snail doodle because the wall got repainted already)

The diluted ink adds a tender touch to it. Which is how I feel about joy. Happiness is a soft and tender feeling to me.

AMAZEMENT

This piece was inspired by my classmates, 2017 G6.

After I started school, my classmates never failed to amaze me in class. Every day I will be amazed by someone or at least be amazed once hahaah. They are so goddamn amazing. Everyone is very passionate and skilled at different things. I feel that learned more things from them than my teachers.

My class is quite bonded too. We wore pink on Wednesday this week. It was real cool HAHA.

Previously I could only watch my friends who took Higher Art have numerous outings with their Art friends.

Now I finally have my own. YAYY!!

To my friends who are reading this, you guys are amazing!!!!!!

Amazement is something exciting, with energy and motion. I splattered paint and then  used the tip of the brush handle and went on in a circular motion. Circular because we always sit in a circle during lunch and chat at the same time. Circle also suggests infinity, just like how my classmates never fail to amaze me. I also splattered dilute watercolour paint on. The spots add in the idea of surprise and delight. I loved how the watercolour was a bit translucent, adding a touch of tenderness.

Another thing, I was partly inspired by Karen when we were playing around with ink at first. She was playing with the tip of her brush handle which gave me the idea.

I was also inspired by Jackson Pollock’s way of painting.

 

LONGING

I did not study in Singapore when I was younger. I was overseas in an international school. In fact I transferred a few times. When I first came back to Singapore I was so confused. I did not understand Singlish as well as the culture so I had a hard time adapting. I felt lost and isolated as the students treated me badly. They would make insensitive comments etc.

I missed my friends from international school and the schooling system there. It was very different from Singapore’s local schools.

The lines resembles the contour lines on a physical map. It resembles the land and water separating me and my past life.

I did this piece on newsprint. It wasn’t because I was lazy to cut out drawing block paper. It was simply because water marbling showed up the best on Newsprint. I tried on watercolour paper, printing paper, marker paper, cartridge paper, the ink does not get absorbed into the paper quickly. When I lifted the paper up, only newsprint managed to get the ink onto the paper.

I think there is a message in this ( it’s fate HAHA ) When I felt this sense of longing, I wanted to return to the simplest things I could do with my friends/ in my previous arc. I wanted just to say hi to my friends or just be with them. Even if we were not doing anything it was more than enough. And newsprint is the cheapest paper out of everything I have tried. I can even get it for free from school *steals from 2D room*

Longing is a lingering feeling that grows and wells up in you. I felt that the long lines as well as the colour of newsprint accurately captured this feeling. The vertical white lines I intentionally created was to add the idea of “broken fragments” to suggest how I felt isolated at the same time.

    

Inspired by:

 

ANXIETY

That one time I was really anxious perhaps to the point of panic was when my younger brother got stung by a jellyfish. He suffered from a fever right after the sting. On the way to the hospital, on the car i was so upset and worried it felt that my brain was going to explode. I even blamed myself for what happened. I could have stopped him from going down to the seashore. To my dismay the Malaysia hospital was very inefficent and my brother could not be treated. I thought I’d lost him for a moment. For the first time in my life I prayed really hard to “God” despite being a free thinker.

Luckily he recovered slowly as the poison dissipated slowly.

I used my brother’s toy wheel to mimic the same sting that showed on his leg when he first got stung. That very moment remains vivid in my memory, I doubt I would ever forget that feeling of shock and pain i felt.

(WHOEVER DARES TO HURT MY BROTHER WILL GET IT FROM ME)

I made the paper damp by running it under tap water. Afterwards I used arcylic paint and the broken toy on the paper. I chose acrylic as it is a paint that dries and solidifies. It adds a slight texture to it. It is also to signifiy that it will leave a mark on my brother forever and also leave a mark in my memory forever.

   

Anxiety is an emotion that may build up and cloud up one’s vision and mind. Therefore I added layers of prints after the first dried to express that, I also made sure this was expressed by using more concentrated paint and black paint right out of the tube.

Inspiration:

This isn’t my brother’s leg. I didn’t take a photo of his scar right after he got stung.

But this is how it looked like, roughly.

Who would, seriously.(whoever would still have the mood to take photo deserves a slap)

I was busy panicking.

DISGUST

As a child, I hardly get disgusted since my tolerance is quite high. However, there was this one thing that disgusted me to the point I had nightmares. I had nightmares for a few weeks thanks to this thing. I cannot describe how much it disgusts me. It’s black tar body drips and is dragged around leaving trails of mucus like substance. It is slime like body engulfed characters in the movie. I was so revolted I think I puked afterwards.

In my nightmares, its eyes will keep growing and popping up one by one.

And then its iris will turn and stare at me.

Then it will chase me.

I would wake up in cold sweat and tears.

Disgust is an ugly emotion. It should not look pretty. I mixed oil, ink and a bit of water together. Afterwards, I dripped them onto the cartridge paper. The oil and ink were not miscible. This suggests how I was put off by the Tar Monster. People only get disgusted when they can’t accept it. (at least this is how I see it) So just like how oil and Chinese ink, being unable to mix I try to push my memories of this stupid Tar thing away. Of course, I failed and I suffered from nightmares. Funny how I had nightmares because I felt disturbed and disgusted by it but not because I fear it because it was a monster.  Does it still make sense?

I dripped white ink onto the black parts repeatedly just like how its eyeballs keep popping up in my nightmares.

 

Inspiration:

REJECTION

When I was younger I was not a very sensitive kid. Now I choose my words carefully.

Previously in international school I accidentally offended someone. I think I was insensitive and said something she did not want to heart. After i found out about her being mad I went to write a long apology letter. I folded it nicely and placed it in an envelope, which I slipped into her locker.

Out of worry and curiousity I hid behind the staircase and waited.

What I later saw shattered my heart.

She took out the letter and tore it without reading.

Then she crumpled it and threw it.

I never felt so hurt before in my entire life.

My heart was shattered.

I wrote many drafts and threw them away. The number of black paper fragments on the bottom of the piece was the number of times I went to rewrite the letter.The black pieces also represent the words I carefully chose to craft out the letter. However despite my efforts out friendship ended in tradgic.

To make this, I crumpled up newsprint paper and dipped it in diluted black ink. The pieces of black fragments is made up of tissue, dyed black by chinese ink. Fragments of tissue paper because it is fragile, just like how our friendship ended, in pieces.

Inspired by:

This idea was developed from my initial idea for Neglect, which was also crumpled paper. However I realised later on the reason why I had an emotion response to crumpled paper whenever I see it was because of this incident locked away in my memories. I tried not to recall it but my mind and body remembers it unconsiously.

So in the end I decided to embrace it and use it.