Lin Hsin Hsin, Sunny Side Up, 1992

Oil on paper
28 x 37.5 cm (visible), 50 x 62 x 2.5 cm (framed)
Condition: Very good, foxing throughout the work, mould present within frame. The condition is consistent with the age of the work. Restoration and reframing is advised.

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Lin Hsin Hsin (Singaporean, b. 1952) is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist renowned for her pioneering work across diverse media, including early innovations in digital art for visual and performing arts. With a foundation in mathematics and computer science, she is also an accomplished poet and composer, finding a shared abstractness in art, mathematics, and music.

Her artistic journey began in childhood but took shape after high school, when she delved into oil painting under the guidance of Nanyang-style pioneer Cheong Soo Pieng (Singaporean, 1917–1983). Inspired by European masters like Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Joan Miró—who also explored the intersections of music and mathematics—Lin developed a unique approach to abstraction.

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"Works such as sunny side up ... transcribe the common events and terms of daily life into works which are satirical in content. However, despite this sojourn into irony, the works are anything but black in humour. For example, sunny side up depicts a scene with an overturned turtle, sunning itself on top of a coconut tree. An imagery which certainly tickles the imagination. Pleasantly colourful, it immediately lightens the mood. A consummate colourist, this work certainly carries her trademark characteristics showing the careful control of hues, shades and tints in the orange of the turtles and the green of the tree and background, one commonly associates with this artist"

Susie Koay, Curator of Art National Museum
back to nature [1992]

There's a book written about this piece, view it here.

(Photographed in March 2025)