Color Series : Singapore Red

Singapore’s cultural landscape is layered, and red moves through it like a pulse.

Opening doors to many cultures.

It passes between Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian communities—
carrying vitality, protection, celebration, and life force.

 

Red here is not singular.
It adapts.
It weaves itself into many ways of living.

In Chinese tradition, red holds fire and sun,
the color of power, good fortune, and joy.

In Indian culture, vermilion marks purity and auspicious beginnings—
a sign of fertility, devotion, and passage.

In Malay tradition, red speaks of courage and celebration,
worn for moments meant to be remembered.

Among Eurasian communities, red appears at ceremonies—
especially weddings—shared as a color of happiness and prosperity.

 

But red in Singapore also lives in labor.

The Samsui women, marked by their bright headscarves,
carried stone, soil, and steel through heat and rain.
They paved roads.
They raised buildings.
They lived simply, sending their wages home,
often remaining unmarried, their lives shaped by duty and endurance.

Their red was not ornamental.
It was practical.
Visible.
Unyielding.

They became a symbol of strength and grit—
women who helped build the foundations of the city itself.

There is a movement in red here.
A rhythm that connects ceremony and work,
joy and survival,
tradition and becoming.

Red in Singapore is not only seen.
It is carried through each culture.

World Heart Day- Singapore

This pulse of red continues in my gallery work, where color, labor, and cultural memory meet. At this time, I am finishing a collector piece entitled: Shinzō no kodō, or Heartbeat. I will be posting the images in two weeks' time...

Please visit my website!

xoxo

Leslie

Color Series: Vietnam — Yellow (Vàng)

Yellow in Vietnam is not decoration.

It is an inheritance.

It is the color of ripe rice fields bending toward harvest,

of ancestral altars warmed by candlelight,

of imperial robes once reserved for those entrusted with the land and its people.

Yellow carries prosperity, yes—but a quiet prosperity,

earned through patience, season, and care.

This yellow belongs to the earth.

It holds harmony and warmth,

a belief that color can shape the energy of a place,

can steady a home, can bless what lives within its walls.

In towns like Hội An, yellow meets the sun daily.

Mixed with lime, it reflects heat, cools the body,

and ages with grace—deepening rather than fading,

becoming softer, older, more itself with time and rain.

At the beginning of the year comes Tết,

the moment when yellow brightens everywhere.

Spring arrives.

Golden dragons move through the streets,

sending away lingering spirits,

while ancestors return—

drawn home by remembrance.

During Tết, families gather at the altar.

They light incense.

They speak names.

They remember.

image from Dreamstime

Yellow, then, is not only the color of celebration.

It is the color of continuity—

of those who came before

and those who will carry the light forward.

These hues of yellow—earth-worn, ceremonial, and enduring—live on in my gallery work, where color, lineage, and handwork meet.

Please visit my website!

xoxo

Leslie