T. Shuxia

Shuxia is a Singaporean artist and illustrator. She works with various mediums and is presently exploring storytelling through art. Prior to changing careers, she did research in art education at NIE and was a manager for her family’s dental business. She has a multidisciplinary background in cultural studies, community arts and graphic design. (Instagram @t.shuxia)

Title

Journeying through the internal landscape

Medium

Accordion book – print on paper

Year

2021

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Artist Statement

This artwork is impressed by Emily Koh’s short memoir “Reconstructing Labrador Villa Road”. As a reader of “Reconstructing Labrador Villa Road”, I was first struck by the author’s feelings toward her grandmother’s house, the land on which it sat and its eventual fate. An onslaught of unpleasant emotions washed over me and it was a while before I could re-read it with a clearer and objective mindset.

This interesting first impression I had gave me a glimpse into another artist’s inner struggles (or what I perceive to be) and an epiphany that my gut-sinking reaction was because I realised that I would have felt and thought similarly if I were in the writer’s shoes. This made me think about Koh’s short memoir as a self-enquiry type of work where the reader is brought along in her journey to find answers and in tandem the reader is looking at herself through the writer’s journey.

In this series of wordless comic strips, I sought to illustrate a fantastical landscape of one’s inner world where enquiry is a quest through indescribable feelings and buried emotions. It is partly a loose interpretation of (what I read as) Koh’s feelings in her memoir and my own experiences and thoughts on untangling self-enquiries. 

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Writer

Koh Gek Ling Emily

Memoir: Reconstructing Labrador Villa Road