During my 3-year stint in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, I’ve always love to
draw characters and cartoons. I would exaggerate
every form I’d see. I would ape the style of my favourite artists just to get
the renderings or the form right. I have to admit, I am
not a born -artist and I don’t have that natural talent to illustrate. But I
climb my way up, practice hard, observe more, learn and
keep following my passion. Well there’s another setback I would like to
highlight. I can’t really express myself through writing.
I’m so bad at it. That’s where my visuals play a part. I can’t write
love-letters for nuts, instead I’ll draw her hearts, flowers or her
potrait on paper just to let her comprehend. Being visually-driven does not
mean I’ll remain stagnant. However, currently, I would
make a point to open up the thesaurus to check every vocabulary I don’t
understand and I’ll ask around for advice and tips on
good writing or I would say the ‘art of writing’. I think it’ll be beneficial
in the long run.
Being so immersed in character drawing, I have decided that it’s about time
for me to create
one, MY OWN. One that would represent myself, passion, influences and life.
That’s where
the tag and character comes in, LilPinkDevil(LPD). Why LPD? That’s the first
question in
peoples’ mind. Why pink? Are you gay? I got that often. And there’s even
someone telling
me to change the name as it might obstruct my path to giving workshops at
schools or
government sectors. Bottom line, I’ll still stand by this tag.
LPD is a personal reflection which I have projected onto a character. I live
in a balanced
world where everything weighs evenly. The notion of the creation is to have a
balance outlook.
So that the people and public would have a balance feel of the visual. Balance
between good
and evil, bright and dark. For example, LPD have features of the devil such as
horns and
fangs but the additional butterfly wings, magic wand and smirk just balanced
the whole
form. LPD will also act as a visual of communication to be expose just
anywhere, on different
surfaces and on the streets. And my perception of the colour PINK, its
obviously my favourite
color. It attracts. It arrests one’s attention and it provokes. Just to stand
up from the controversy,
Pink is for Passion.
“To be bold and creative, you have to be above the rest and you don’t follow
the crowd. Therefore from my perspective, creativity
evolves from spontaneity and sincerity.
It starts from the heart, cos that’s where your passion lies. It then elevates
to your brain and that’s where you digest and conceptualise
your idea. Lastly, it projects to your muscle, hand or your tools which
eventually projects on any surfaces desired. Be it papers,
canvases, walls...etc. That’s where you can see the art or idea created. I
live with this cycle...”
These couple of years, I’ve been experimenting, projecting my art on different
surfaces and trying different mediums as I don’t
believe in being stagnant. I want my LPD, my art to be ever-evolving. I want
to push my art beyond and stretch myself further.
Being in the design industry for almost 3 years, it helped me in creating and
marketing my art. Absorbing what I have learnt in
the corporate world and releasing it to my art or vice-versa, I’ve seen the
aftermath as I managed to penetrate the corporate world
with my art. There’s LPD signatures appeared in newsletters and prints for
government sectors such as A*Star, National Environment
Agency (NEA), Nexus (MINDEF) and Media Development Authority (MDA). Therefore,
that kind of fulfilled my aim of bridging
the gap between my art and the corporate world.
Generally, from the visuals I created, the stickers I pasted and all those
live paintings performed, I just want the public and people
to understand my character and that’s the main emphasis. Be it in the public
or gallery. I want the public to understand LPD. The
form is all about balance. It’s about balancing good and evil. There’s
kindness behind that darkness. It’s all about having a balanced
life. ‘A little bit of this and a little bit of that.’ After all we aren’t
that perfect after all. Personally, I’ll have a sense of satisfaction
if LPD, having this ‘balance theory’ affect or infect the peoples’ hearts and
minds.
The urge of painting any surfaces or found objects. This is another practice I
would like to promote. Merely beautifying objects
for the people and public to appreciate.