A Hundred Year Journey, 2021

This is a 100% original painting that I did on a tree trunk. I gathered this section of trunk that had been cut down by the city council and painted the narrative of the tree that had survived for generations.

In the inner city of Georgetown, Penang, where I stay, some of these trees that line the roads are more than 100 years old, and the city council will trim them occasionally. One day, I chanced upon a few blocks of tree trunks, and I took them home and turned them into artwork.

This piece of art came from my intuition.

I sometimes wonder how the decades have passed since the trees were planted. If they had eyes, they would have experienced and seen how the city has grown over the years.

The lines, markings, and objects that I painted on the trunk denote the visions of the tree over the passage of time. There are many stories to be told, but only if the tree can tell them.

It says of the birds that have roosted on it over time, the floods it had to endure, the insects and diseases that came and went.. all these little stories are recorded on this piece of art.. just as how the tree would capture its history.