I’ve been sketching out ideas for a collection since some time late last year.

Unfortunately it kind of brings back some painful memories of art school so it’s been kind of slow-going. On the other hand, I’m also kind of happy to have a series to work on again.

小女神, or, Little Goddesses, is a collection meant to explore visual ideas of gender, culture and how the two interplay with each other. More specifically, this series of work is rooted in my identity as a Chinese Singaporean.

Colloquially, pretty girls who are thought to be ideal in every way are called 女神 nü shén, or goddesses.

To me, the term speaks of several social pressures placed on women and girls. More broadly, this pressure is placed on DFABs, regardless of how they identity later in life.

On the flip side, I believe in the idea of everyone being their own god, their own divinity, so I guess, nebulously, I’m playing around with that idea combined with this term that’s so carelessly placed onto DFAB people.

To be honest, I’m not really sure where this series is going at the moment, but since it’s the first series I’m working on in years, I’m just going to let the pencil and mind wander, and I hope the result finds resonance with others 🙂