Hong Yi
Hong Yi, also known by the nickname ‘Red’ is an Malaysian artist-architect who ‘loves to paint, but not with a paintbrush.’Red’s grandparents and father left Shanghai in the ’60s and moved to Malaysia where she was born and raised. She heard stories about how life was like for her grandparents and her relatives in China. After graduating from university, she took up an offer to work in Shanghai. When she got there she was blown away by the city. This inspired her to start on a project of ‘painting’ portraits of iconic Chinese figures, using local everyday materials like a basketball, candles, seeds or socks as her medium.
