Cover Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi handstitching works for her upcoming exhibition ‘I‘m a Mum?!’
Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi handstitching works for her upcoming exhibition ‘I‘m a Mum?!’
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‘I‘m a Mum?!’ is an intimate exploration of new motherhood, told through Red Hong Yi’s signature use of unlikely materials
If you’ve ever wanted to glimpse inside an artist’s mind, Red Hong Yi’s new exhibition at Cultprint is your chance to do so. The exhibition, titled “I’m a Mum?!” is an intimate look at the thoughts and feelings that swirled around Red’s brain in the hormone-filled 30 days after the birth of her first son. Red has transposed this whirlwind of feeling into a colourful, chaotic depiction of new motherhood, through tiny embroidered stream-of-consciousness sketches to confronting explorations of bodily changes. Red Hong Yi speaks to us about how this exhibition came to life.
Tell us about your newest exhibition.
It’s called “I’m a Mum?!” Those were my thoughts right after my first baby was born, I have two now. I thought to myself, when I was close to giving birth, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to journal, I have to scribble down my daily thoughts because this is my very first experience into motherhood.’ I just want to remember these thoughts and moments before it slipped away.
So the project that I gave myself was to embroider my thoughts every day for 30 days after giving birth to my son. But the most I could manage was a scribble every day in this sketchbook. I tried to squeeze in as much stitching as I possibly could, which was very little.
What was the process after you’d completed those 30 days of sketches? How long did it take you to return to them?
Months. I attempted to stitch like a week after and it was just like barely a few centimeters and I stopped. And that piece just stayed there for months before I went back to it.
So the timeline was: Birth of my son, this was end of 2021, very loose sketches, and then a small attempt at stitching, and then nothing. Until, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to give birth to my second child, I’d better complete that one before I get into the second one!” I ramped it up in the final trimester and told everyone, “Let’s do this!”
Above Red Hong Yi and her team hand-stitched 30 works of embroidery that form the central theme of the new exhibition
Above The embroidered pieces are based on sketches Red Hong Yi drew every day during the confinement period following the birth of her first child
Red Hong Yi and her team hand-stitched 30 works of embroidery that form the central theme of the new exhibition
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When you look back on those 30 pieces, do you remember each day quite clearly?
When I took all the sketches out, I went “Wow, I didn’t realise that my emotions were going up and down so much.” When I was in it, I just thought, “I just need to get through it.”
Did you always know that you wanted to embroider them? Was there ever any other way that they were going to take shape?
I think I naturally gravitated to something soft and I gravitated towards embroidery, which was never really my tool. I knew that I was having a C-section and I knew I was being stitched up, so I was kind of curious about the whole stitching thing. I even asked my gynecologist, what does a C-section stitch look like? Like, show me. In some of my art pieces, I do have that stitch technique.
The other thing was I thought to myself: I’m going to have a son, he’s probably going to get his shirt torn or something one day, what am I going to do if he asks if I could fix a button or something? I had no idea how to do that. So I thought, okay, during this time while I’m at home, I should learn a little bit of these practical things to mend things. So I think it drew me towards embroidery.
Some other pieces that I have right now, I’m getting a piece done made out of buttons. I was also drawn to buttons because I think there’s something very homely and comforting about buttons. It puts two things together. So I've been working with that a bit as well.
Were the buttons an instinctive choice?
I explored a range of materials and then eventually landed on buttons. I've been doing art for about 10 plus years, I think I’m really naturally drawn to using everyday items but multiplying them, presenting them in volume. So I thought buttons were small, kind of like little pixels.
Above The embroidered sketches are in turn funny, emotional and raw
Above Red Hong Yi in her Kuala Lumpur studio
The embroidered sketches are in turn funny, emotional and raw
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In a lot of your previous work you've dealt with big global issues. How did it feel to turn the lens in on yourself by looking specifically at your own experiences with this?
I feel like it was a lot more authentic and a lot more me, actually. This whole exhibition and experience has been quite pivotal for me because in some of the pieces that I've done in the past, I guess I would question if it was really something that was a theme that I really wanted to talk about longterm. Like it was genuine and authentic to me during those times, but with something like this, I know as long as I am alive, my kids are alive, I’m going to be a mum.
It was something that I really wanted to talk about because prior to becoming a mum, I was in two minds about whether I wanted to become one too. I mean it is very personal, right? I also want to talk about it because I think about 10 years ago I went for a course at Sotheby's in New York, a business course in art. I distinctly remember that there was a talk about income for artists, male versus female. And the comparison was very stark. The most paid male artist was earning this much and the most paid female artist was earning this much. The lecturer said that one of the things that collectors at the time were looking at was whether a female artist was going to become a mum, and if she became a mum, would it disrupt her career? A lot of collectors buy for investment too, so they would consider these things. And I thought to myself, oh wow, that is a bit bleak. But today I think because of so much conversation and awareness about female empowerment and because we have more women talking about their personal experiences too, about juggling career and work and family, I think it's not as cut and dry as it was 10 years ago.
Aside from inspiring the art itself, how has having children changed your perception of creating art?
I think about including them or I think about what I’ll tell them about the art that I was making, Because they're going to see these pieces, I know they’re going to be little humans looking at these pieces and asking me what they mean. So I have an inbuilt audience already. So I involve them in the whole thought process.
What do you hope people take away from seeing this exhibition?
That’s an interesting question. I think in the past I would probably give you an answer to that, but for this, I’m not hoping for anything. I’m just hoping they go in and just enjoy the show. I’m also curious to know what they take away from it and what their emotions are.
