I based this painting on Dancing Mutants by Hernando R. Ocampo because of a multitude of reasons like its nice colour contrast but also because the mutants remind me of the free spirit I once possessed when I was younger: blissfully unaware of the responsibilities I had. The background contains shades of red, orange, yellow and green to represent the warmth of the places that I consider home. The two main focuses of the painting; that being the log and the concrete are the two different areas that I have called home.
The log and the other natural features like the cloud and the rock represent the time when I lived in a semi-urban area outside of the city which was indeed still a modernised community, but a few simple steps could transport you into the wonders of nature. The concrete represents where I live now, the concrete jungle of Singapore, although nice, not quite the nature I had before.
I think the nature surrounding me in Hong Kong was wonderful as it enabled me to truly roam free. This was especially evident during those long summer holidays with little to do and lots of time to kill. Everyone had different things to do within those times, but tag was mine. I used to play tag with the kids in my neighbourhood almost every day with long games sometimes lasting days without everyone being caught (Not the entire day, just most of the waking hours). This was because we would hide in difficult areas like sometimes in a tree or underneath a car - safety was the least of our concerns. This is represented by the number 8 as 8am and 8pm were the times when we would end our games and go home.
You could imagine my delight when school was essentially cancelled in my eyes during online learning as my friends and I churned through our schoolwork, so we would have more time to wreak havoc in our peaceful little neighbourhood. I was located on a relatively small island-about 20 minutes by car from end to end- that was half an hour from the mainland in a ferry and so we knew the area like the back of our hand. We knew almost everyone given that the residential areas only had two shopping malls to go to. It was a nice community, and I do miss it, but also realise that the move to Singapore was for the better as I continue to thrive and enjoy Tangling Trust School.