Tai Po Fire Tragedy
Grief does not always look like fire.
Sometimes it looks like a park on an ordinary afternoon- flowers left at the edge of a path, a small stuffed toy placed among the stems. The towers still stand. The city still moves. The silence between those two facts is almost unbearable.
I did not paint the flames. I painted the morning after- no drama, no spectacle. Only remembrance, care and prayer.
Shell by Shell
I chose pen, pencil, colored pencil, watercolor, and photographic collage because no single medium could hold the layered story I wanted to tell.
The idea began under the floorboards of a stilt house in Tai O, an old fishing village in Hong Kong, where I noticed an entire ecosystem clinging to a single wooden pillar. A structure built by people had quietly become a home for the sea. I started with oyster larvae — spat — settling on timber: the microscopic moment when reciprocity begins. The piece grew outward from there into a cross-section of a shell, its growth rings echoing a tree’s, surrounded by barnacles, mussels, plankton, and the small fish and shrimp that gather in the cleaner water oysters leave behind.
Working through this theme, I came to see that the ocean sustains us far beyond food. Oysters filter water, build reefs across generations, and lend meaning to the human structures we sink into the sea. They guard coastlines, and they model a patient, collective architecture I want to learn from.
My message is reciprocity. What we build into the ocean becomes part of it, and what the ocean builds onto us — shell by shell, layer by layer — sustains the villages above. The pillar at the center of my work is both human and marine: a quiet reminder that our story and the ocean’s story are already growing into each other.
We Weave the World Together
I’ve always thought of human rights less as rules written on paper and more as something people actively carry- something that has to be held, together, or it falls apart.
That’s where this piece started. I drew hands from all different backgrounds reaching toward the same center, each one holding a thread labeled with a right: Freedom, Education, Dignity, Peace, Family, Voice. The globe in the middle isn’t powerful or grand- it’s small, and it needs to be supported.
The weaving metaphor felt right to me because rights aren’t static. They can be strenghthened or cut. And no single pair of hands can hold all the threads alone.
I wanted this piece to feel less like a statement and more like an invitation- to reach in, to hold on, and to recognize that the world stays together only because people choose to keep it that way.
May Peace Prevail on Earth
Imagines a gentle moment of stillness in a world that often feels loud and divided. Using colored pencils and pen, I wanted to create a soft yet vivid scene where human prayer, nature and a dove of peace all flow into one continuous movement. The swirling blue and green shapes echo the colors of our planet and suggest rivers, sky, and wind, reminding us that peace is not static but something we must keep in motion together.
At the center, the white dove carries an olive branch and flies across the words “May Peace Prevail on Earth” symbolizing hope traveling across boarders, cultures, and beliefs. The praying hands and flowers represent the quiet inner side of peace- our thoughts, prayers, and small acts of kindness that often go unseen but still matter. By layering these elements, I tried to show that true peace is created when people, nature, and spirit are connected in harmony. Through this piece, I hope viewers feel a calm invitation become “peace pals” themselves and to keep the message of peace alive in their own communities.
Cracks in the Foundation
Graphite pencil, Colored pencil, Ink pen on paper
This piece asks what systemic justice looks like- and what it takes to break through it. The crumbling courthouse at the center represents institutional power that has long presented itself as neutral and permanent. Rendered entirely in dense graphite pencil and ink pen cross -hatching, the architecture fractures at its core, exposing what it was never designed to protect. Through the cracks, a bust of amber light erupts- the only color in the work- as hands rise from below carrying fragments: Equality, Justice, Dignity, Freedom, Rights, Accountability. These are not decorations. They are the demands that have always existed beneath the surface of institutions that refused to hear them. The light does not come from above. It comes from the people pushing through. At the base, a crowd of faceless silhouettes glows with the same yellow, connecting those who demand change to the change itself.
The black and white world of the institution- formal, cold, structured- is interrupted only by the warmth of collective action. That contrast is the thesis: justice is not self-executing. It requires people to fracture what is broken before something more just can be built in its place.
This work is not about destruction. It is about the necessary precondition of repair.