TROPICANA MAGAZINE Jan-Feb 2020 #128 The Love Issue

Jacket from Versace
Red Hong Yi is playing with fire.
Literally. She is lying on her
back, holding up a lighted candle
while attempting to wipe soot and
dripping wax off her face. The
work is unglamorous yet Red is
silently chuckling to herself, ruminating on how her
followers have this perception that her work as an
artist is always so easy. But that’s just social media for
you. All her effort isn’t for nothing as Red worked on a
commissioned piece by Google Singapore, specifically
a 10m-long mural made of burnt bamboo weaves.
It may be hard for anyone to imagine that
underneath Red’s effervescent persona, the
professional architect turned artist whose art
exploded on the Internet seven years ago was and
still is rather conscious when it comes to speaking
about her work. After all, if you take into account her
48,822 subscribers on Youtube and 179,900 followers
on Instagram, that’s a colossal amount of eyeballs
focused on one person who just confessed that she is
“actually quite shy”.
“I think it’s a common theme for artists to always
have doubts about their work,” she offers candidly,
when prodded about her shyness claim. “Personally
for me why my art career began was because I decided
I cannot be shy about my work anymore and I have
to show it despite my fears.” How did she conquer
that fear then? “What struck me is that you have to
forge on and not be too mindful of the naysayers as
you go on with what kick-started that passion. I tell
myself that I cannot take it too personally and my
work should not dictate my worth and my value,” she
points out affirmatively.
Start Of Something Good
While Red owes a large share of her art career’s
initial success to social media (a video recording of
her creating a portrait of retired NBA star Yao Ming
using a basketball and red paint went viral overnight),
she asserts that it can eventually turn into a doubleedged
sword. “Likes, shares and comments should
not be the determining factor whether a project has
succeeded or not. It can spark anxiety for sure,” she
remarks.
Red herself pleads guilty to falling under the
social media trap during her nascent art career,
psyching herself into believing that her next project
had to reach a million views. When that did not
happen to some of her projects, she thought she had
failed. “I learned that wasn’t the case because that’s
just social media and how you market your project.”
It’s been five years now since Red has given up her
architect career to pursue art full-time.
77 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 | TM