Christine Chua has an incredible way of turning what might be dismissed as waste into pieces of art that feel almost magical. She uncovers beauty in the forgotten corners of urban spaces, showing us that even in decay, there’s something fleeting yet profound. Her installations create a dialogue between the rigidness of human-made structures and the slow, inevitable forces of nature, giving new life to overlooked aspects of city life. By working with foraged pigments and found materials, she doesn’t just stay confined to the gallery but spills her work out into places like construction sites or ruins—these forgotten spaces become perfect backdrops for her art’s transient and ever-evolving nature. In doing so, she invites people to really look at the materials and processes of decay around them, dissolving the lines between art and the environment.
Her process, both literal and metaphorical, feels like a kind of excavation—digging into the present to connect with some ancient, imagined past. It’s hands-on and rooted in a curiosity that feels almost archaeological, with each piece of art becoming a relic of both the future and the past. Whether displayed in a pristine gallery space or out in the open air, her work pulses with life, as if drawing directly from the breath of the city itself. There’s something playful and experimental about her choice of materials too, using homemade artifacts and pigments from organic sources, which keeps her art constantly alive and in motion.
Chua’s recent workshop series, Pigment to Paint – Colours of the Earth, continues this beautiful exploration of the past meeting the present. Through these workshops, she offers a quiet, meditative space where participants can engage in traditional craft techniques in a shared, communal environment. It’s not just about creating art; it’s about the experience of making something together, tapping into a larger mission of building community through creation. At the same time, she grounds everyone in the history of the materials they’re using, reminding us how connected we are to both the earth and the past.
This sense of constant change is also reflected in her collective, Muddy Mudlarks, which focuses on finding new spaces for emerging artists to showcase their work. Like her own installations, the collective’s exhibitions embrace spaces in flux—places caught between construction and decay, between growth and erosion. It’s this tension between permanence and impermanence that gives Chua’s work its emotional depth. There’s a poetry to it, much like the vivid image of “baked by the dripping sun,” where people and spaces blur together, vibrating with a sense of possibility. Time seems to fold in on itself as the audience navigates the remains of a story that’s still unfolding, like dancing in the rain’s aftermath.
In her installations, you find a generous portion of a human, a slip of a spine, a trampled torso, reminding you that life is always changing, unpredictable, and full of possibilities. In her work, the visceral imagery reminds you of this fragmentation, like you’re seeing a body in between disintegration and rebirth. A lot like nature’s unpredictable patterns—sunshine, showers, water slamming on shores—her art explores the delicate balance between order and chaos. With lightning claps and showers symbolizing the transient, ever-shifting energy of human life and her installations, the weather itself becomes a metaphor.
From rainstorms to the hot sun, Chua feels like life itself is a rain dance of elements in her world. Like these natural phenomena, Chua’s art pulses with a primal energy. She combines the physical and the ephemeral through the twisted and sweaty sheets melting into one. By using her materials and processes, she exhales condensed findings, creating spaces where fiction meets alive matters. It’s this fusion of the real and the imagined that makes her work feel so alive-constantly in flux, but always searching for meaning.
