Whether it’s art for art’s sake or one with a cause, Red Hong Yi and her team are pushing against the conventional confinements of contemporary art
“My late grand-uncle was an oil painter who used to paint posters for the Chinese Communist Revolution,” Red Hong Yi recalls, visibly wistful as she peers over the phone while I scroll through her Instagram story highlights. “He was initially trained and influenced by European paintings, and had even done some of his landscape paintings before most of his original work was destroyed during the revolution.
“You see, the artists had to paint a very specific style,” Red continues. “It was all about using vibrant colours and drawing healthy-looking people—they weren’t allowed to do it their way, nor were they allowed to truly express themselves.”
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The whole ordeal, the Sabah-born artist adds, scarred her grand-uncle so much that he never picked up his brush again, but that never stopped him from helping his grandniece.
“Whenever I brought my work over, he’d give me comments like ‘Oh, your portraits are good, but you’re not getting the shading of the mouth right. You need to remember that the teeth have curvature!’” she laughs. “Which is why I always ask my subjects to close their mouths whenever I draw portraits now—I get nervous whenever I have to draw teeth.”
In order for an artist to have a unique voice, one simply had to be themselves and not try to be like anyone else
Referring to him as one of her biggest mentors, Red remembers a pivotal moment in 2019 (the last she ever saw of him before his passing in 2020), when her grand-uncle had immediately recognised her charred weave piece before she even announced it as such. “He’s always told me that in order for an artist to have a unique voice, one simply had to be themselves and not try to be like anyone else.”
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