Lie Fhung
INDONESIA | currently living and working in Hong Kong
CV in PDF

photo ©Lie Fhung  

Precious (AKA Portal #015 - the Dream Archives Project) was created back in 2009, before I got to know Sin Sin. And yet, this work is uncannily perfect to symbolise Sin Sin and our experience working together intensely in the past year.

In the early 2012, I was introduced to Sin Sin Man by Valerie C. Doran, a well known curator and art writer who at that time was helping Sin Sin curating the Earthly Evocations: Indonesian Art Now. She would like to include my installation work, Freedom is A Collaborative Effort (2011) in the show. In the end, not only I then became one of Sin Sin’s Indonesian artists, but I have also became one of her core helpers working in her art space preparing for the many exciting shows she put together.

Working very closely with Sin Sin has brought me a better understanding of who she is, where she came from, and what motivates her in her relentless pursuit of bringing beauty to her surrounding. Precious comprises of three major parts, which I now see as corresponding to Sin Sin’s Atelier, Fine Art and Villa. Each part is important and yes, precious, to her. They are just like her babies: her love, her joy, her responsibility; they are her life. They complement and enrich each other, forming a formidable creative dynamics that fuels Sin Sin in bringing her visions to life. However, they often create tensions as well. It is not easy to manage the balance between them all. I can totally relate to this being an artist who works with various media and interested in many disciplines. Besides creating art, I also run an online digital scrapbooking business while working as a freelance graphic and web designer - and now, working part time for Sin Sin as well. Here, I feel that I understand her difficulties in maintaining a fluid balance within her various enterprises.

Sin Sin and I share something in common with the babies in Precious. We both are aware that we have chosen to take the idealistic path, which can translate as being naïve and perhaps, unrealistic. We both believe in the purity of our visions, that it is important to retain a certain sense of childlike naïvety and innocence to transcend the jaded ordinary life. It is necessary if we are to spread our wings and make our dreams a reality.

There are a lot more stories and symbols that people could read into this work. A lot of them are true of me, while also applicable to Sin Sin. I leave this to the viewers observation and imagination.