MOTHERHOOD, UNFILTERED

Red Hong Yi’s latest exhibition I’m a Mum?! embraces the raw, tender and emotionally complex realities of becoming a mother.

- Words: WILLIAM KC KEE

For years, Red Hong Yi has built an international reputation for transforming everyday materials into arresting works of art.

From tea bags and chopsticks to flower petals and eggshells, the Malaysian artist became globally recognised for her large-scale, labour-intensive creations that blur the lines between art, design and storytelling. But her latest exhibition may be her most intimate medium yet: motherhood itself.

Now showing at Cultprint in Penang until July 12, I’m a Mum?! marks a strikingly vulnerable new chapter for the artist. The collaboration between Red and Cultprint was sparked after gallery owners Ernest Zacharevic and Sheena Liam paid a visit to Red’s studio.

Far removed from spectacle-driven installations, the solo exhibition turns inward, tracing the emotional terrain of early motherhood through embroidered works, handwritten reflections and deeply personal storytelling.

The title alone feels loaded with contradiction: playful, disoriented, almost incredulous. But that emotional ambiguity is exactly the point. “Even after giving birth, there was still this surreal feeling of: ‘Wait... I'm somebody's mum now?” ponders Red. “It felt beautiful and completely disorienting at the same time.”

Rather than presenting motherhood as polished or instinctive, I'm a Mum?! sits comfortably inside its messier truths: exhaustion, tenderness, loneliness, joy, identity shifts and emotional overwhelm existing simultaneously. The question mark becomes symbolic of a role that never fully settles into certainty.

“I think we grow up absorbing this very idealised image of motherhood,” she says. “But in reality, it can feel shocking, funny, emotionally messy and deeply overwhelming all at once.”