This mural came about spontaneously, painted in exchange for room and board during a stay at a hostel in Ipoh, Malaysia. It unfolded in quiet conversation with the space, the people who passed through it — and a one-eyed kitten who ended up inspiring the central motif.

Ipoh is known for its colonial tin-mining past, and more poetically, for Concubine Lane — a narrow alley strung with red lanterns and flanked by old wooden houses, once said to be home to the eight mistresses of mining tycoon Yau Tet Shin.

At the heart of the mural stands a one-eyed woman — partly veiled behind a traditional Chinese fan (tuánshàn). She echoes both the hostel cat and the historical concubine: a figure marked by closeness and distance, presence and anonymity. Here, she becomes a quiet bearer of balance — of yin and yang. She moves in the space between mystery and power, occupying a role that was traditionally hidden from view.

The fan itself suggests elegance and concealment — what’s shown, and what isn’t. A dragon emblazoned across it symbolizes power, prosperity, and the fiery charge of yang. Behind her, the moon softens the scene with its quiet pull — the reflective intuition of yin. That tension — between strength and softness, light and shadow — forms the conceptual spine of the piece. She is mysterious, yes — but never passive. She holds her ground.

What began as play — a kitten, a blank wall, tropical heat — grew into a field of tension, and in that tension: a kind of harmony. Between the seen and the unseen. Between human and myth. This mural became an intuitive tribute to chance, to encounter, to place — a moment where story, setting and personal experience flowed together into an image that could only exist here. And maybe that’s what art often is: a reminder that the most unexpected encounters can bring something to life.