Because I was struggling to make ends meet as lockdown was being implemented and lifted whatever and whenever, with dining venues still closed, I invested for a busking permit and started making my journey back and forth to the city to sell my artworks, and that was when I was met with generosity, kindness, and sincere, unconditional love, so my disappointment in people, caused by my housemates and work colleagues, was slowly healing.
That’s all I ever needed… dignity, someone who listens to my story and genuinely cares, people who can see my ultimate pride in my catastrophic tragedy.
Once a  strange, troubled man came talking to me for hours while I was busking, but even though he was so disagreeable that he scared all potential buyers away… he handed me a peculiar card before leaving, in which there was a huge gold nugget in the bottom of a very dark cave.
The card was so meaningful and important to me that I sent it away to the person who bought my first love letter ever. You can find out more about my Love Letter service via my website. I made a video talking about that strange, powerful card, too, somewhere on my Youtube channel.
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These next 22 paintings, ‘Hope of Gold’ and up to’ Patience’, were inspired by my ‘Wonderful Peace’ I made a few years earlier, my third painting attempt just before going homeless. Perhaps I was seduced, because I mused myself with the warmth and beauty, comfort and  solace of this subtle, simple yet complicated abstract style.
These paintings were produced during the very dark chapter in my life where I was living in that share-house from hell and were sitting around heartbroken with me before they started selling after I was kicked out and needed help the most, as if the universe had everything planned out already for me and had been taking care of me, especially when I was finally suffocating as ‘Tsunami’ and ’ Typhoon’ will reveal… and yet, they are all so, so colourful as if they belong to an artist with a much better life, a different story, another headspace, but no, they belong to me, with pride, as I take pride of my unique survival story.
I have got some of these beauties still waiting to leave the nest, but before then, I like to believe that the universe, as always, had been planning something better to do with them for my sake first.
Besides optimism and resilience, I think what makes Man’Si paintings stand out is the one, most important meaning behind them: gratefulness.
The importance of being grateful , patient, and gentle with oneself and others, and everything else in the universe, so everything else goes with you not against you.
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 Size: 40.5 cm X 30.5 cm