Street Artist Yip Yew Chong
By Yip Yew Chong at the wet market on 30 Temple Street in Chinatown, Singapore.
Yip Yew Chong: “While visitors are having fun posing for photos, I also hope they will get up close to the mural to study the details. This mural at 30 Temple Street is now probably the most intricate outdoor mural in Singapore! I tried making the details authentic, balanced with aestheticism and fair representation of the 1970s-80s Chinatown Street Market.
Many visitors who saw me paint it realized I didn’t plan every detail in advance. I had a broad idea in my mind, and then along the way, I googled images of say, different veggies, fish etc and decided on the spot which to add onto the trays. As for the stall selling monitor lizards, frogs, turtles and pythons, I intentionally put it the background and painted in a blurry, indicative manner.
I was afraid some visitors may feel scared by the sight. During the painting, I polled a few visitors, especially children. They all said the scene is not scary, and they can tell they are snakes and lizards, phew! While adding the blood, someone commented, “it’s enough”! I really enjoyed the painting process of having visitors on the spot contribute to the creation of the mural!”
