Old shophouse doors and windows and trishaws spiral round and up in a whirl of calming blues, greens, ochre and brown, in this dreamlike interpretation of Penang heritage aesthetics. Trishaws were introduced in Penang in the mid 1930s, coming to shape Georgetown’s transportation system, while shophouses date from the 18th to the 20th century, incorporating Chinese designs and principles of feng shui with European building techniques. The painted iron grilles come in different varieties – from ornate curvilinear to modern geometric styles for window grilles to utilitarian accordion gates used for backdoors and shopfronts.

Today, trishaws are popular with tourists and are also sometimes still used by food hawkers. Protected by Georgetown’s UNESCO Heritage status, old shophouses are still lived in and run by traditional tradespeople but increasingly these are being turned into hotels, cafes, and souvenir and bicycle rental shops for visitors.

The artist means to “evoke the childhood wonder of looking up at towering buildings”. Without a human in sight, we are left to fill the empty streets with stories of imagined pasts and futures.