The winner of Asia's Next Top Model Cycle 2 has turned her favourite pastime into a burgeoning career as an artist
The first time I chanced upon Sheena Liam’s work was in the earlier half of 2017, when the artist had just started posting on Instagram under the handle, @times.new.romance. And while I wasn’t able to put a face to the name then, this mystery embroiderer’s works had definitely caught my eye; featuring a series of tall, willowy figures stitched in meticulous, deep green, their hair either purposefully left alone or styled to spill organically from the canvas—almost as if they have a life of their own, so to speak.
A quick trawl through Google later, and I find myself even more intrigued when it seemed as though the embroidered women had in fact come alive, manifested in the form of their very own creator, who at the time was a model that had taken the world by storm in 2014 after winning the second cycle of Asia’s Next Top Model.
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In that very same year, Liam found herself in a flurry of activity; from being signed to an international modelling agency, to debuting in London Fashion Week and even landing her first few magazine spreads as well as covers in the following months, the model was a well-seasoned traveller by the end of it all. However, during the downtimes in between shows, Liam’s suitcase apparently became her very own portable studio, and she would embroider wherever she went, committing personal moments to memory via needle-and-thread instead of a camera.
“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy working out of a suitcase, even if I had done it over the past two years since I started in 2014,” says Liam. “It was just a means to an end really, more of a way to express myself during my idle moments. Those earlier works of mine had travelled the world alongside myself, and like me, they’ve grown in their own way as well.”
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