10 days after the war in Ukraine erupted, a friend contacted me to do a painting to express our wish for Peace. As it is a meaningful message, I readily agreed. My friend is a Russian living in Singapore.
We explored various ideas and feasible ways to deliver the message. Things moved quickly. Other friends gave logistical support and arranged to auction the artwork for refugee relief efforts. I think the overall effort itself is symbolically meaningful – regardless of nationalities, races and geo-political viewpoints, people can work together for humanity causes.
On that day, we spent 6 hours doing the painting. “Can we fly kites?” depicts children of different colours, from various places, flying kites in a sunflower field. Everyone painted the sunflowers, thus the flowers have different styles. The sky is blue with wavy white clouds. The sun shines subtly. A mangrove blue and yellow flycatcher (a native bird in Singapore) flutters around the sunflowers.
The scene represents the wish for Peace, so that the children can fly kites again. Joyful scenes are my usual themes, as this painting is; but I changed the style to be kiddy, like a children’s book cover. Children are naturally innocent, pure and are our future. The joyful scene is what should be happening in the sunflower fields.
Personally, I have several friends currently in Ukraine and Russia, and friends from there living in Singapore. I have also been to both countries for business trips a decade ago. I now feel empathy for all my friends. Thinking back, I cherish the dinner I had in a rooftop restaurant in Kiev with Ukrainian and Russian colleagues in 2013. I cherish the weekends I went hiking in the outskirts of Kiev and Moscow. Some photos on my website: Ukraine photos
The symbolic painting was auctioned. The proceeds went to that Singapore Red Cross humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine.
