Audrey fell in love with sports at a young age of 12 while being a Bukit Bintang Girls’ School student in Kuala Lumpur.
Her passion coupled with raw talent led her to proudly represent Malaysia in two South East Asian Games in 100m hurdles race. With great potential to excel in a dynamic environment, she was awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Youth & Sports to major in Physical Education & Sports in the USA in 1987. She also pursued learning programs such as LCCI Higher Diploma in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations and MBA from Oklahoma City University while working. Life went by centred mostly within the corporate and business sectors ranging from the fields of Banking & Finance, Communications and lastly Advertising Film Production company which she co-founded but exited in 2017.
Her previous demanding career and business life have never stopped her from setting her heart on pursuing new challenges.
A change in her family life led her to explore painting. Audrey believes that this artistic journey is a path guided by the Divine and through this “gift” she found painting a good therapy apart from adding a different dimension to her life. Audrey seemingly found her first love in a renewed form; filled with the same zest and spirit of the athlete that she was. To her wonder, she effortlessly began to translate strokes and colours with immense zeal, perseverance to learn and flair into the artworks you see today.
Audrey’s first medium was acrylic with palette knives on canvas, which granted her an almost limitless movements and expression with colours; very much like running on the athletic track. However in March 2019, she felt it was time to up her artistic level and was in search of something more interesting. Thanks to the introduction of an art curator, she found it in a medium called the Contemporary Fine Art Batik with art mentor Sam Karuna and never looked back since.
Her love for contemporary batik grew as she started to unfold all the intricacies, grace and unpredictability of colours control when creating batik. She was and still is very intrigued by the long process involved in producing a commendable piece such as planning the subject matter, drawing on paper, tracing onto cloth, waxing (with the “canting”), colouring, cracking, fastening of colours, removing wax, boiling, drying, ironing…..Echoing her art mentor when referring to the painting process, she says, “We always have to be in a state of peace and pray that it will turn out the way we want it to be for every piece .”
Exhibitions/Achievements:
- 46th Asia Invitation Art Exhibition in Seoul, Korea 2018.
- Love & Care Charity Art Exhibition in support of Hospis Malaysia, Sunway Putra Mall, Kuala Lumpur 2018.
- “I Can Care” Celcom Cat Painting Exhibition, partially in aid of University Malaya Care, Sunway Putra Mall, Kuala Lumpur 2018.
- Solo Online Showcase & Charity Auction, (a fundraising event for the Elena Cooke Education Fund which supports under-priviledged youth for tertiary education), Kuala Lumpur 2018.
- Art Bazaar 2018, Bank Negara Museum & Art Gallery (a division of Central Bank of Malaysia), a group exhibition featuring 15 women emerging artists, Sasana Kijang, Kuala Lumpur 2018.
- “Like this and like that,” group exhibition organised by Rossocinabro Gallery, Rome, Italy, of emerging artists from around the world, 7-31 March 2020 (due to pandemic it had to go online).
- “Co-Existence,” Online group exhibition organised by Rossocinabro Gallery, Rome, Italy, 10-30 April 2020.
- “More is more,” Online group exhibition organised by Rossocinabro Gallery, Rome, Italy, 10 September-8 October 2020.
- Certificate of Artistic Achievement, Luxembourg Art Prize 2020
- Certificate of Artistic Achievement, Luxembourg Art Prize 2022
- Winner of Arte Laguna Prize 2023, Venice, Special Prize – Art Residency in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China