Journal
10 Oct 2026 | My First Artist Talk | Makowski Gallery HK
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining me for this artist talk today. My name is Mariah Solikin. I was born in Indonesia. I moved to Singapore when I was 10 years old. In 1997, I moved to Hong Kong to work in financial services.
During the pandemic lockdown, I found my way back to my passion for painting that had been put aside for a very long time. To start painting again at this age, I feel a certain kind of freedom. I wasn’t confined and do not have to fit into a specific box. I care more about being honest and to bring a fifty years life experience onto the canvas. I work with acrylic on canvas and watercolors on paper. My acrylic works generally revolves around two distinct themes. The world of precision: geometric shapes, word art, and Chinese characters. These pieces directly reflect my decades in financial services; the side of me that craves structure, clarity, and predictability. The other is the world of fluidity: lines, movement, and abstraction.
When I was in my twenties, I went through a difficult period. I felt lost. In search of answers, I turned to philosophy, physics, and sacred texts ever since. I came across superstring theory in physics. The theory suggests that if we zoom into the most infinitesimal, all existence is tiny, vibrating waves of energy strings. The two abstract paintings you see in the gallery today are influenced by this idea.
The first piece is titled Glide. The essence of this painting is courage and the idea that the unknown can be inviting rather than terrifying. Looking back at my life, whenever I moved to a new country or started a new chapter, I never truly knew what I was getting into; I simply found the courage to try.
The second painting is titled Vision. It explores curiosity as an inherent human quality, and the fascinating paradox of human existence. Our reality is somewhat like tunnel vision. The universe is infinitely vast, yet our perception is limited. However, our curiosity acts like a telescope, constantly driving us to seek out new perspectives. We are naturally drawn to tunnels, apertures, or windows, always wondering: what lies beyond? This piece conveys the beautiful contradiction of our existence: we are placed in a boundless universe, given limited sight, yet born with limitless aspirations. Paradox and contradiction are themes I return to frequently in my work.
This is the end of my talk. Thank you for coming today.
Aug 2026 | Chinese Character Series: Part 2
When I was ten, my sister and I moved to Singapore for our education, living under the care of a guardian. At the time, Bahasa Indonesia was my only language. While picking up English in primary four was challenging, the familiar Latin alphabet made it manageable. Chinese, known locally as Huayu 华语, was a completely different story, it felt like trying to learn to swim in the deep end of a pool. Learning a logographic language for the first time at that age, I had to rely entirely on memorization to link each character to its sound and meaning. By the end of secondary school, I successtully passed my Chinese exam at the first-language level. That marked the end of my formal Chinese education, a journey that, like many students, I had treated simply as another school subject to overcome..
Jul 2026 | Chinese Character Series: Part 1
As an overseas Chinese born in Bandung, Indonesia, my relationship with the Chinese language has been complex and rather turbulent. When I was a little girl in the seventies, the Chinese language was banned in Indonesia. Like most Indonesian Chinese of my generation, my Chinese name wasn’t official. It was given to me by my parents, but it didn’t appear on any official documents. My earliest introduction to the language was around the age of seven through the Lao Fu Zi 老夫子 (Old Master Q) comics, which my sister and I would secretly look at behind locked doors before quickly returning them to the adults for safekeeping..
Mar 2026 | Venus Flytrap Series
Together
msolikin
Caught up in a whirlwind,
Holding my breath,
Waiting for it to end.
Lost.
Does it matter?
Out a sigh
To find
A new place to begin
Together.
Oct 2025 | Summer is here. 2020
As I revisit one of my earliest works, 'Summer is here’ 2020, I reflected on how it all started. It was during lockdown when my kids' screen time skyrocketed. Tired of the nagging, I began to paint: bold loud colours and words that screamed for attention. An honest display and a chance for them to discover that any non-screen activities could also offer some joy.
While I have limited success, 1 am rewarded with so much more. A special personal journey and the knowledge that an army of fellow artists are doing the same. The irony is, I got this knowledge by navigating the media and now I am sharing my work on the media. The real lesson is for me: how to balance on/offline and to realize what the online world is capable of presenting. In the meantime, I'll continue the balancing act to stand on the middle of this seesaw and hope my kids will notice.