I Sayang You

Watercolour on paper, photographs 29.7 × 42 cm, 2025

I Sayang You is a series of watercolour portraits I painted after my return from Singapore. Each portrait is someone I developed a close relationship with during my year there. The work emerged as a way to process all the memories I made and the grief I felt after leaving.

The title references the word sayang, a Malay term of endearment used across Southeast Asia to express care, affection and love. I intentionally did not define the phrase during the exhibition, allowing audiences either to recognise it through cultural familiarity or infer its meaning through the emotional tone of the work.