The New Girl and Red

Red, 76x 61cm, oil on canvas, 2012

 The New Girl, 76 x 91cm, oil on canvas, 2012

“The New Girl” and “Red” depicted modern Asian women who dyed their hair with different colors, from a dark hair Asian beauty to a brunette, brown, red and other color dyes………they keep changing their hair color until they forgotten what their original hair color is! (I was once received a comment regarding my so dark hair, queried why my hair is so black! OMG! I was born that way!). I place this modern era girls with a traditional batik motif background to show the contras between two elements: “Modern” and “Tradition”. The background girls in “The New Girl” are typical batik figurative design (kampong girls) commonly used. The dyed hair modern women in the paintings are more as a symbol of modernization. In the painting “Red”, the woman face is void of color; very pale looking, with striking red hair n red lips. The color used on the image of woman in “The New Girl” are also mostly towards the tone of “cold color”. I am trying to convey the message that some of the new generation today is so indifferent, cold towards their originality, roots, traditional values and culture. I am not trying to critique or impose my “traditional thinking” on anybody, or saying the new generation is in the wrong for not following their culture and tradition. How they live their life is their own choice, especially now most people are a bunch of technology savvy, web social network craving in this modern technology world.  I am just trying to present a contras image with two different elements for you to think, to ponder, to wonder, to deliberate about what happened in the world today and what have lost with the bygone era!