Art

Down

                 The

                              Rabbit

                                                 Hole

 

 

 

To Just A Little Bit Of Magic

Natural-Industrial Chrysalides, 2023
Inspired by human-nature interactions, Natural-Industrial Chrysalides is composed of balloons infused with 14 “organic” and “artificial” scents. The natural scents are in tethered 36-inch balloons, whereas the potent industrial scents are in 12-inch balloons. The “artificial” balloons are filled with helium and CO2 to maintain buoyancy and move due to static electricity. The audience engages by bursting the balloons with needles, evoking a sense of exploration and discovery. Whereas the earplugs heighten olfactory sensations by blunting auditory senses, the ceilinged enclosure creates intimacy as the audience converges to smell each explosion of scent. While the first few scents are distinct, the layering of scents disorients and invokes a psychedelic state as the audience inhales and internalizes them. This embodied experience is heightened by the diffused red and green lighting to visualize the merging of humans and nature. The gray balloons thus anonymize the scents to illustrate our inability to predict human-nature interactions.
Hypnagogic Hallucinations, 2023
Chromatic Forecast, 2023
Hypnagogic Hallucinations illustrates my dreamscape after watching the movie Madagascar. The zebra’s emergence from the pistachio cupcake depicts the random connectivity of daily objects when the mind is fluid and hyper-associative. It illustrates the cohesion between fantasy and reality as the bottom half of the zebra, saturated with colors against the backdrop of a paper airplane, transitions into a normal zebra after passing through the film. The ballon doubles as an hourglass to portray the fragility of time as the zebra struggles in a life lacquered by schedules and successive goals, whereas the rigid shadows on the airplane and ants frolicking in the “hourglass” illustrate how the film separating fantasy and reality is permeable. Are dreams inherently meaningful or only gain meaning after we analyze them?
Urban Zipline & Hypnagogia, 2024
Urban Zipline is a work-in-progress where users are able to zipline through a concrete jungle suspended in midair. It explores the best design languages for VR art and affords novel interactions characteristic of this medium.
Steam-Powered Jester, 2024

Steam Powered Jester and Say Cheese are experimental films made in collaboration with AI models about a Victorian inventor who unveils a dark masterpiece and the ensuing exchanges in a theater.

Bubbles, 2023
Rather than denoting a traditional four-walled space, the word “room” is redefined as an abstract space one can experience but not necessarily see. I have always found comfort in dreams—a topsy-turvy world that finds logic in the unlogic and beauty in the grotesque. I have kept a daily dream diary for the past 10 years, each entry recounting visuals and narratives one rarely encounters in reality—from giant mechanical ants to honeycomb-like lodges. These imagery populate my dreams, a comfort room that is constantly shifting and in orbit. It is as if the real world is experienced through a funhouse mirror and everything inside is played backwards. Through the painting Bubbles, I aim to preserve and depict the intimacy of our dreams in a public space where we are able to find comfort in absurdity. Likewise, by alluding to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I hope to portray a sense of communal dream and cultural fantasy. By tilting the painting, I seek to show how Bubbles visualizes the comfort room in reality by evoking childhood memories. The surreal aesthetic and vibrancy of both paintings highlight the porous nature between reality and dreams. Through positioning the painting against the backdrop of static colors, I seek to heighten the immersive and welcoming nature of the comfort room as it extends beyond the two walls. The corners of the painting are deliberately asymmetrical to underscore the topsy-turvy nature of my comfort room and activate colors both within and outside of the painting.
A Gelatinous Still Life, 2023

A Gelatinous Still Life leverages the advantages of ray tracing by carefully positioning objects next to each other to simulate color bleeding with nearby geometry. This technique is prevalent throughout the scene but is especially evident with the yellow wrapped candy bleeding into the white paper airplane at the back. Likewise, I created lollipop chandeliers by positioning spotlights within each of the three candies hanging above the scene such that the colors—yellow, magenta, cyan—bleed into the rest of the still life from the jelly to the plates and the donut frosting.

I Saw OOF, and Thought YO, 2023
I Saw OOF, and Thought OY is an AR experience that interrogates contemporary issues of artistship and intellectual property in the context of AI. By casting the immersant as DALL-E, we humanize the training of an AI model on existing artworks and open conversations on how it relates to and differs from Deborah Kass’s appropriation of Edward Ruscha’s OOF and Picasso’s YO Picasso. We incorporate humor into the experience evidenced by the honking car and banana art to sustain user engagement with the AR narrative. Likewise, we leverage the ticking clock technique and struggles of a procrastinating student to heighten emotional investment in completing the experience. The non-digital onboarding and offboarding both visualize how questions related to AI and art appropriation permeate our screens and allow the AR experience to feel more intuitive. By physicalizing the training of an AI model and allowing user movements to dictate the narrative flow, we similarly enhance connections with AI and illusions of user mutability. We end the experience with a printed image of the generated model to challenge immersants to approach debates on AI art from another perspective and examine artworks more critically in terms of what existing pieces they have appropriated starting from exhibits at Cantor.
Spore Couture is inspired by the mystique and organic intricacy of mushrooms, with an asymmetrical silhouette that transforms the wearer into a surreal living work of art. Spore Couture’s textured fabric mimics the delicate gills and velvety caps of various fungi, while its natural hues evoke the earthy palette of human-nature symbiosis.
Spore Couture, 2023
Garden of Earthly Delights, 2023
Inspired by Bosch’s painting Garden of Earthly Delights, this triptych visualizes how human imagination perverts the Christian conceptualization of the “good life” through depictions of heaven, earth and hell. It explores the concept of unlikeness in which rather than a reflection of the image of God, humans are corrupted both by their instincts and imagination. The title thus strikes a highly ironic tone as the “earthly delights” humans indulge in inevitably facilitate their corruption. Garden of Earthly Delights produces an overwhelming visual effect and positions the audience as voyeurs where the abnormally long triptych invites them to lean in close and participate in the scenes as if peeking through a door gap.
A Contemporary Bacchae, 2022

A Contemporary Bacchae is a reconceptualization of Euripides’ tragedy, The Bacchae, where the maenads are intoxicated by Dionysus. The three cocktails—sangria, margarita, dirty martini—allude to malfunctioning traffic lights as the maenads transcend into the realm of ecstasy, unable to exert control over their own behaviors. It depicts struggles between the twin forces of restraint and freedom as the figures are induced by Dionysus to express their human instincts yet at the same time experience the aftermath of exercising such liberty within a conservative society. Are the maenads’ “insanities” direct products of, or merely liberated by Dionysus’ influences?

Post-Mortem Rewards, 2022
Post-Mortem Rewards illustrates my self-induced hypnagogic hallucination during an experiment on Salvador Dali’s paranoiac-critical method. I stared at the skeleton model and wilted flowers for 20 minutes before allowing myself to access subconscious imageries in hypnagogia. The Chiaroscuro lighting dramatizes the irony of post-mortem rewards as the skeletal structure remains forever stagnant, pining for the flowers just out of reach like Tantalus’ fruit. The skylight represents the mortal world; the skeletal structure is eternally isolated by the film of glass, in limbo between earthly pleasures and post-mortem rewards. The cracked skylight illustrates the gradual erosion of memories as the figure forgets, and is in turn forgotten by the mortal world. Yet, there is beauty in death. While the flowers cannot be captured, their existence symbolizes hope. Perhaps, hope is able to compensate for the stagnancy in death.
Fluidity of the Human Psyche, 2022
Fluidity of the Human Psyche satirizes our attempts to categorize and define ourselves. How much of “us” is truly “us”? Are we merely the products of predetermined genes and external experiences? The hands symbolize agents of distortion as we mold our identities. Yet, are the changes lasting or fleeting? The meandering lines liken to unchangeable thumbprints whereas the interplay of colors is reminiscent of lights flowing across a river. Are our psyches thus set in stone or constantly evolving? Thumbprints, rivers, or unable to be rationalized?
Intoxication, 2022

Intoxication mimics the double-vision one experiences when intoxicated as the darkness closes in upon the figure, obscuring his vision and sense of clarity.

Blinking Eye, 2022
Pastel Drifters, 2022
Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 2022

Metamorphosis of Narcissus illustrates Narcissus’ literal fall into the body of water to parallel Nemesis’ curse for him to fall in love with his reflection. The distorted skeleton illustrates how he wastes away whereas the loose brush strokes in the arm extend into the sky to symbolize Nemesis’ control over him. It employs the double image of cliffs mimicking two upturned faces in anticipation of a kiss to illustrate the cruel unattainability of love. It is an inversion of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, as the reflection is preserved whereas the real body decays. What differentiates between self-love and narcissism? Are they calculated from fractions of our individual capacities for love or merely determined by societies’ arbitrary definitions?

Chessboard of Extinction, 2022
Chessboard of Extinction likens extinction crises to games of chess where the fowls on the left are all extinct species. The ripples allude to the ripple effect; it illustrates how like chess, each seemingly innocuous move has ramifications indiscernible until it is too late. The flamingo with skeletal structures extending out of it evokes a surreal tone, yet extinction crises are a reality with up to 150 new species lost each day. The sky’s inverted transition from blue to yellow instills the hope that there is still time to reverse extinction crises with the conjunction of vigilant climate change campaigns and technological developments to resurrect extinct species (all the while heeding warnings from Jurassic Park).
Panache, 2022
Panache illustrates the equilibrium between autonomy and mortality. The clenched fists allude to the appropriation of death as a source of power rather than fear, whereas the skull’s integration with the rose subverts the conventional belief that death is morbid. Without death, our lives will cease to be valuable. Diamonds are highly coveted because they are scarce and lives are valuable because they are transient. Our approach to death is a double-edged sword; we can neither be blind to nor blinded by it. This is a reminder of the inevitability of death and to traverse through every second of life with individuality and panache.
Celsius 232.8, 2022

Celsius 232.8 is a visualization of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I wanted to capture the rapidity and ease with which cultures can be devastated by metaphorical fires—whether they be ignorance or oppression. Art, both literary and visual, enables us to prevent the disintegration of marginalized voices and stories.

Liquid Symphony, 2022

Liquid Symphony illustrates playing the violin as more than a prosaic hobby; the knitted brows reflect one’s concentration, whereas the distorted figure is reminiscent of musical notes. The abundance of space around the figure accentuates the solitude one experiences when playing music and the monochromatic color scheme on the left evokes a sense of unity. The significance of the waves is two-fold; while they symbolize music’s fluid and enthralling nature, the ceaseless tides likewise mirror one’s relationship with music—ardent yet frustrating.

Fragmented American Dream, 2022

Fragmented American Dream satirizes our conviction in the American Dream where the blinking green light at the core alludes to The Great Gatsby. The capsule unfolds, revealing the light as little more than lasers shone upon a piece of glue. The physical properties of the cardboard thus mirror the American Dream—fragile, fragmented, and susceptible to breakage. While anything is possible given hard work and motivation, we must not neglect our privileges and the roles they play in securing our successes. Equality of opportunity is an illusion and a justification for the privileged; in order to bring it closer to reality, we must institutionalize changes rather than relying upon individual actions.

Defiance Against Gravity, 2022
Defiance Against Gravity is a triptych that subverts Newton’s concept of gravitational force as the model is made from cardboard pieces laser cut into 0.1-inch strips. This structure embodies order amidst chaos as while it looks chaotic upon first sight, the cardboard strips are separated from each other by 3.3 and 8.6 inches and adhere to patterns only decipherable upon closer inspection. The cardboard structure is positioned on top of a mirror to evoke a sense of boundlessness.
Who Am I?, 2021
Who Am I? is a diptych that features the transition of an individual into a skeleton. The clustered background is representative of our idiosyncrasies; while this piece symbolizes a loss of identity, it may likewise be interpreted as a celebration of our differences (left) and similarities (right).
One Hundred Days of Solitude, 2020
One Hundred Days of Solitude is a collage of 100 photographs I have taken prior to the advent of COVID—a period of isolation and uncertainty as we navigated through the pandemic. During the 2020 lockdown in Singapore, I posted Instagram stories with inspirational quotes each day to solidify connections with friends I was no longer able to meet with and form new bonds with individuals over our shared longing for hope and human connection.