The paintings in this series take the form of organic figurative work layered upon stained, raw fabric. Large in scale (some are 5-6 feet), they are displayed unframed and hung in tapestry form. In this solo show, Sai thinks about how we anchor ourselves to symbols and patterns. how they might turn into scaffolds that we layer meaning and identity upon, and how myths emerge and elevate the everyday to the sacrosanct. A dog, a gecko, and depictions of eggs recur as motifs, often situated within a landscape of architectural, design, and natural flourishes.

The dog is Sai’s late, beloved rescue dog, who represents love and loss. The gecko is from a story her grandmother told her, about its chirp heralding death. Sai re-interpreted the story, to see these household creatures as kindly reminders of using our time the way we wish to while we are alive. The eggs stem from Sai’s older work which depicts women in contemplation of them, as a remark on expiry, productivity, and reproductive choices. Appreciated as an already ubiquitous, multi-cultural symbol of origin and possibility, but also as something that is literally on our plates and inside some of our bodies, she places it alongside the dog and gecko to form a deeply personal, yet perhaps very relatable mythology: of love, loss, and contending with the passage of time.

Like demi-Gods, the motifs sit within grand arches and depictions of nature, a nod to Sai’s fondness for how creatures often surreally mix with humans and flora in the global historical art and architectural context. She juxtaposes a few elements together from her own context: the plants around her coastal home in Hong Kong such as pandan, sea-almonds, frangipani, beach naupaka, araucaria columnaris, and macaranga tanarius; her take on commemorative torans that one might find in monumental temples and forts; freehand forms that harken to Rangoli or Mehndi in South Asia, as well as to the aesthetic exchange she observes between those and Art Deco styles - especially with elements like ornate window grills in Hong Kong, New York, London, and Mumbai buildings; and, contemporary visual imagery tied to indoor spaces, to merge them with the outdoors.