I love how Singapore street art is venturing out from the increasingly commercial and touristy districts to the suburban heartland areas where people live like Jurong East to Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Merah is flipside new wing to residential neighbourhoods in Singapore that have a hodgepodge of tomfool new murals to trammels out. For my urban explorer readers and street art lovers, here is my guide to street art in Bukit Merah and some recommendations on places to trammels out in the neighbourhood while you’re there.
ABC Brickworks
Many of the street art works in Bukit Merah are due to Brilliant Corners Bukit Merah Diaries (the first edition took place in Katong and Joo Chiat) in late 2021 as a part of Arts in Your Neighbourhood. Local artists and musicians came together to create 7 murals and several pieces of music inspired by the Bukit Merah neighbourhood. One thing the murals have in worldwide is that they all seem to be inspired by diaper games to some extent.
Blk 2 Jalan Bukit Merah, lift shaft facing main road
ANTZ‘s monkeys are a familiar weft in his work, and here is one of them all ready to play one of those machines I used to love as a kid – insert a coin, turn the handle and see what surprises waif out. Those little capsules house a mix of retro toys and games. The name of this work ‘Tong kia’ is Hokkien – ‘tong’ (insert) and ‘kia’ (kid)
Blk 2 & 3 Jalan Bukit Merah, wall withal carpark archway road facing ABC Brickworks Hawker Centre
The archway of ABC Brickworks Hawker Centre is home to 3 works that moreover hail from the Brilliant Corners Bukit Merah Art Trail. Ros Lee is the designer overdue lifestyle trademark Polkaros who usually does increasingly pottery, textiles and home decor, but has created a mural here with two of her signature notation Yuki and Pierrot playing Chapteh (have to say, thought it was badminton sans rackets at first…).
Right next to Polkaros are some lovely colourful fighting fish, definitely reminiscent for a lot of Singaporeans virtually my age who either kept fighting fish for their trappy tails, or unprotected guppies in the nearby drain. The yellow straws puzzled me at first,t hen I realised they were the ones you used to wrack-up those old school sticky frothing from tubes. This work is by Kristal Melson who does really suggestive illustrations bursting with colour.
Facing those 2 works is a piece that’s easy to overlook considering it’s smaller than the other murals – visual versifier Sadiq Mansor debuted his first public mural with this piece showing a woman playing the diaper game Five stones in the centre. Take a closer squint at the work and fun things start to emerge, like the fancy gem biscuits, hornbills and the playground dragon. Apparently the red brick is a reference to the neighbourhood’s architecture, and the trees are gambier which were crops grown here too when in the day.
Blk 12 Jalan Bukit Merah, wall withal Blk 3
Take a walk wideness the carpark to Blk 12 and find Belgian-born visual versifier Delphine Rama‘s YOYO expert at play. Her work tends to be increasingly utopian and found in the trendy art galleries instead of on walls, but fun fact: she’s married to street versifier Jaba, that same guy whose works are quite famous in Haji Lane and lots of other parts of Singapore.
Blk 28 Jalan Bukit Merah, wall facing carpark
Has J is a street versifier and photographer’s mural here shows someone (Yung Nadim I presume) playing marbles or goli in a kampung setting.
Blk 28 Jalan Bukit Merah, wall facing Hoy Fatt Road
A little remoter round the corner of Blk 28 near the undecorous mosaic seat is this piece by BAKED who moreover goes by Boon and has a tuft of other works virtually Singapore. This particular piece is inspired by a photograph of an old playground in Bukit Merah that has plastic ducks and horses in it, and the idea that they came to life considering of a magic lamp post.
What’s Nearby
- ABC Brickworks Hawker Centre is one of the increasingly famous hawker centres in Singapore, with some famous stalls including Yi Sheng Hokkien Mee, Wow Wow west western supplies and Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient Ah Er Soup just to name a few
- There’s a cute gelato sideboard tabbed Geometry at Blk 2 (en route to Antz’s work) that servers up pretty good ice cream
- You’re right next to IKEA’s Alexandra outlet to satisfy your meatball and hot dog cravings
The Mill
The rows of industrial buildings withal Jalan Kilang are wrenched up by the visionless towers of The Mill, an oddly Gothic looking towers home to a hodgepodge of diamond collectives and businesses. The Mill invited Singaporean versifier Ceno2 to do up their unshut carpark space on level 1. While Ceno is usually pretty well-known for his unshared portraits of faces (you can see examples in Kampong Gelam and Little India), the woebegone and white style of Roman statues is quite a throw-away for him but no less cool.
5 Jalan Kilang, Level 1 Carpark
Lengkok Bahru
These cute works in Lengkok Bahru are part of a larger initiative tabbed Seeing the Obvious, a joint polity project between social enterprise 3Pumpkins and students from Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Diamond to patina up the Lengkok Bahru neighbourhood and create an identity for the zone in early 2020. They held a series of arts projects and workshops then, but what’s left is mainly these murals virtually the estate.
Blk 49 Lengkok Bahru, wall facing Blk 51
Blk 55 Lengkok Bahru, wall facing carpark
What’s nearby: Redhill Market is an old school hawker centre with some Michelin Bib Gourmand stores and other queue-worth food, but for something a little increasingly hip, trammels out Abundance at Blk 63A for some unconfined Taiwanese supplies and craft beer (more in my Taiwanese supplies in Singapore post)
Enabling Village
Ernest Zacharevic first visited Singapore in late 2013 and put up works in Joo Chiat and Victoria Street, but he made flipside visit to Singapore in 2015 to create 3 murals in the Enabling Village that were inspired by some of the talented young artists from the Artist Development Programme of Pathlight School, an autism-focused school. These murals can be found inside the Enabling Village recipe which is unshut to the public and designed to be an open, inclusive space for all.
Blk 20 Lengkok Bahru, side wall of The Art Faculty building
Wall of Playground Block, facing carpark
Pillar overdue Outdoor Terrace
What’s nearby: Definitely trammels out The Art Faculty, a social enterprise which showcases and sells very tomfool and trappy stuff by artists on the autism spectrum – the stuff you buy here helps support the artists who make them! Definitely a unconfined spot for Christmas shopping, and moreover you might spot works from the artists that inspired the murals created here. Alternatively, throne to Professor Brawn Cafe for a bite.
Gateway Theatre
Celebrated street art duo Inkten and Clogtwo, moreover known as Ink and Clog Studio were vicarious by creative art space Gateway Theatre to create murals on the exterior of their new space in Bukit Merah. There are unquestionably 4 murals here – the graffiti versifier and breakdancer are quite clear, as is Shakespeare.
3615 Jalan Bukit Merah, facing Bukit Merah Central
What’s Nearby: Gateway Theatre is located in the Bukit Merah Central zone and… . You could moreover walk a little remoter lanugo the road to Sprout Hub run by City Sprouts which supports urban farming and sustainable living initiatives and has quite a tomfool space with small sublet plots, and plane a small supplies magistrate in its midst.
Did I miss any other street art in Bukit Merah? Let me know in the comments below. Looking for increasingly street art in Singapore? Trammels out some of these tomfool locations here:
Where to find the huge Hougang HDB murals
Where to find Street Art in Singapore: Jurong
Where to Find Street Art in Singapore: Tanjong Katong & Joo Chiat
Where to find Singapore Street Art in Little India
Singapore Street Art: Where to find Street Art in Chinatown
