The Climber

In this artwork, a framed canvas painting showing a mountain landscape is embellished with the addition of shoulder straps and a set of utilitarian mountaineering paraphernalia: three meters of rope on one side, a "Nike" water bottle on the other, and a professional-grade carabiner hanging from the bottom.

Titled "The Climber", the painting was first purchased through a local frame-making shop also known for selling low-cost reproductions of traditional south-east Asian art. Later on, a local leather craftsman helped me in the fabrication and assembly of the different parts I designed to turn this painting into a piece of wearable art.

The subject of the painting itself inspired the concept behind the artwork.

Heavily underlined by the artworks' vanishing point, the top of the mountain becomes an unmissable feature of this landscape one is forced to ponder upon. Obstructed and delimited by the incorporation of a large lake, the travel distance between the spectator and the highest point of this peak inspired every aspect of this "fashion painting."

"Is a fashion painting a painting that you can wear?" This was the fourth answer to the question "What is a fashion painting?", the creative brief I assigned to myself for Vogue Singapore's March "Creativity" issue.