I am an art historian by training, and a former consultant for UNESCO in the field of cultural heritage protection, specifically the trafficking of art and antiquities. 

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Broadly speaking, my practice looks at the role of material culture in contemporary life. The idea of an ordinary object holding extraordinary meaning first piqued my curiosity as a child, when I encountered the piles of random objects that my father had meticulously hoarded. Today, my paintings combine such trivial and lowbrow items with narratives rooted in art history and cultural heritage. Through the genres of still life and the domestic, I hope to honour the importance of personal, intergenerational and third culture memories and emotions. This became the basis of my first series, "Home Sweet Home".

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My latest series, "A Room of One's Own", was named after the 1929 essay by the English writer Virginia Woolf. I’m curious about the personal spaces that great women artists carved out for themselves, the belongings they chose to bring into their lives, and the beauty and simplicity of the everyday life they led. This series was also inspired by Louise Bourgeois' idea of the Femme Maison and questions of female identity in the domestic and working spheres.

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I am currently working on a series provisionally titled "Lucky You", which builds on my recent research about classical Chinese porcelain wares. Imperial Chinese motifs that grew out of feng shui beliefs, superstitions, and wishes for luck and fortune have evolved to become part-and-parcel of the everyday furnishings of the Chinese diaspora. Now often sidelined in favour of Western-style furnishings, these mun shou teacups and decorative peach or dragon vases are still rich in meaning, and represent the existential hopes and desires of older generations.

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