Chinese ink and water-based mediums on watercolour paper
 

The Queen of the Night or Tan Hua [曇花] was my great grandmother's favourite flower. This elegant flower opens once a year and only at midnight, much to the anticipation of our close neighbours, who would all join in as we watched the flowers' unbelievable displays. “Tan Hua Yi Xian" [曇花一現] is a thing, meaning ‘the flower vanishes as soon as it appears, or that it appears once, briefly, and short-lived. The flower was not a native in Singapore, but it felt so to me. Oddly enough, it wasn’t a fairy tale from the beginning. When I was a child, I used to stare in horror as no fewer than 13 flowers would open all at once and right before my very eyes. I called them 'monster flowers' as I never knew plants could move so quickly. As I grew older, the fear dissipated and turned into admiration. It became a strangely beautiful experience to watch them bloom in their own time.