"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
Studio setup for painting Time Talisman using a magnifying glass with LED and teeny tiny brushes.
Painted "Time Talisman" dials prepared for varnishing
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
"Time Talisman (2024)" | Acrylic on used wristwatch
Installation shot of the "Time Talisman" series at "All Life is Recycled + Time is A Donut" exhibition in Temu House, 2025.
A few months after my mother passed away on Christmas Day 2021, I bought my first watch in over 20 years. That impulsive purchase led to an obsession with collecting watches.
This obsession perplexed and intrigued me because I didn’t really understand the reason for it so I lean into it and decided to delve deeper into it.
This led me to making the artworks based on the subject of time, and one of these artworks became what I called Time Talisman.
They were made from broken wristwatches whose dials I sanded and repainted with song lyrics that literally referenced time.
T I M E T A L I S M A N
These watches do not tell time, but they are reminders of how we live time, filled with condensed moments of collective experience and memory. They are talismans to protect against the tyranny of time.
The Time Talisman series was originally shown in my fourth solo show All Life is Recycled + Time is a Donut at Temu House, Kuala Lumpur, in June 2025.
It was subsequently featured in the Hin-Between Festival at the Hin Bus Depot, Georgetown, Penang, in September 2025.