Book Review: 路口 朱宏小品集 (Crossroads)

Zhu Hong is a friend of mine. He was born in China but migrated to Singapore in 1997. I can't remember when I met him, but it's must be one of those sketchwalks. He's a funny man with funny hair. He's also a painter and a teacher.

Crossroads collects his watercolour paintings featuring Singapore. It's a 144-page hardcover with nice non-glossy matte paper, about A5 in size. This is the second artbook I've seen without cover art, the first was Urban Sketchers Singapore Vol. 1.

Don't judge a book by its cover, definitely not this one.

Zhu Hong's style is extremely loose. It's quite unlike anything I've ever seen before, from western or Asian artists. There's a childlike quality to the looseness that is further enhanced by the use of bold colours. You can almost sense the fun he has while he was drawing them.

Every painting is a surprise. In what I think is the most interesting piece, he was drawing the city's skyscrapers with them slanting in different directions. It's a very dynamic piece and everything looks just right. I was with him that day while he drew it on several pieces of A3 papers before he stitch them together. Onlookers were marveled.

Besides the beautiful watercolour paintings, he has also included the many phone sketches he drew on his Samsung Galaxy Note. The style is still loose but this time he's painting with pixels. He's a sketching machine. What's in the book is a sample of his upcoming artbook featuring only phone sketches.

Crossroads is in Chinese with some English. The English isn't the translation but really just continuing what he left off in Chinese. Some people in Singapore like to alternative between both languages while talking and I see he has carried that over into the book. It's an inspiring and amusing story of his life and the many crossroads he was at.

This artbook is great and I'm happy to see it finally out. Highly recommended.

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The book is selling for USD$24.

Postage charges by air are as follows

• Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan - USD$16
• China or other Asian countries - USD$11

Email Zhu Hong to order the book. He accepts payment by PayPal.

The book is selling for USD$24.

Postage charges by air are as follows

• Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan - USD$16
• China or other Asian countries - USD$11

Email Zhu Hong to order the book. He accepts payment by PayPal.