I picked out three artworks for which I have found a personal affinity and story. Thanks for allowing me to share them with you!

Ronald Apriyan’s paintings are an effervescent burst of nostalgia. He brings me back to the days of arcade machines and running around clutching my precious twenty-cent coins at the New World Park near Kitchener Road. I recently discovered that it opened in 1923 and closed in 1987. I remember the place from its final years – what it must have been like during its heyday! Thank you, Ronald, for perfectly describing the joy and imaginative spark of these early digital games.

Having a two-year-old daughter truly does change your worldview, especially when they are bouncing off the walls these circuit breaker months. Just today, she has interrupted me four times while I am writing this blog post, surreptitiously grabbed my phone, and harassed the Redmart delivery man. There is immeasurable joy at being reminded that the world is a wondrous place and we adults have grown used to it. Berit has immortalized in bronze this fleetingly precious innocence. Her sculptures remind me that each minute that passes by is an irretrievable moment.

I picked this painting because of the story behind it. While we are all familiar with the introspective sombre of his Nameless Hills series, there is another facet to Huang Hong Tao, a cartoonist who sees the world through humour and caricature. This painting from 2014 is titled Gangland. This piece was inspired by a visitor who was keen on collecting one of his paintings. In the words of the artist, “he was a rather loud fellow who made it a point to impress on me that he had money. He had three associates with him, and the whole experience seemed to me as if I were meeting a mob boss.” Paintings like Gangland are done solely for the artist’s amusement and are not publicly shown.