Jurong Bird Park closed in 2023, yet its flamingos are standing in the shallows again this week, painted in watercolour and hanging on Level 4 of ION Orchard. They belong to 写意人生 – A Journey Through Watercolor, a free exhibition at ION Art gallery that runs from 8 to 14 October 2026.
Four Singapore painters, Bonnie Pun, Jean Yeo, Sheila Teo, and Ho May Nah, have filled the gallery with more than 80 paintings and 100 sketches. Two more paintings, which the four made together, are going home with visitors through a lucky draw.
Plan Your Visit
- Where: ION Art gallery, Level 4, ION Orchard
- When: 8 to 14 October 2026, 10am to 10pm daily, according to the organisers
- How much: Free admission
- What runs out: The show lasts seven days and closes on Wednesday, 14 October 2026
- What to bring: A phone and an Instagram or Facebook account, if you want to enter the lucky draw
- What to see first: The Jurong Bird Park paintings
- Who to follow: @boomerx.1960 on Instagram or Facebook
Four Friends, One Weekly Date
The four meet every week to walk, paint outdoors, and explore a different corner of Singapore, often ending the day over lunch. Painters call this plein-air work, a French term for painting on location instead of in a studio, which means the weather, the crowd, and the occasional security guard all get a say.
Years of those sessions produced the work now on the walls, a mix of familiar buildings, flowers, wildlife, and scenes from the artists’ travels.
Related read: our look at Singapore’s always-on work culture, where the phone decides the schedule.
Flamingos Versus a Helicopter
The Jurong Bird Park paintings are the ones to find first, because they record a place nobody can visit any more. Before the park closed, the group painted there regularly among mature trees, wandering chameleons, uncaged birds, and monitor lizards.
The best story of the lot comes from the artists’ own notes on the paintings. According to those notes, the flamingos would stand calm in the water until an army helicopter from the neighbouring camp flew overhead, and then the whole flock would erupt into a frenzy. One of the painters writes that the birds never got used to the noise, however often it happened.
Free Drinks in Tiong Bahru
Tiong Bahru comes with a gentler tale, set outside a coffee shop on a typically hot day. May Nah and a fellow artist were concentrating on their paintings when two separate groups of passers-by stopped and bought them drinks, completely unprompted.
The same notes admit that other locations were less welcoming, with countless occasions when security guards chased the painters away. They file those under the fun of finding a spot, setting up quickly, and never knowing what happens next.
At a tiny pier in Changi Village, the four squeezed in beside hobbyist fishermen and nicknamed themselves the “four intruders”, since their easels kept threatening to block the way. They returned for two weeks, long enough for the fishermen to start buying them drinks. One day May Nah bought fresh prawns from a fisherman returning from sea, and her family ate them that evening.
The pier had resident chickens too, which laid their eggs in hidden corners. These paintings are records of mornings spent among people, and the buildings come second.
Second Careers, Serious Credentials
Painting arrived later in life for most of the group. The credentials below are as given by the exhibition’s organisers.
- Jean Yeo took up painting after retirement and completed an Advanced Certificate in Watercolour Painting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 2020. She has exhibited in Italy, Albania, France, and Switzerland.
- Sheila Teo rediscovered a childhood love of painting. Her work Full Moon received an Excellence Award at the International Pyrenees Watercolour Contest & Exhibition in France in 2021.
- Ho May Nah began around 15 years ago as a break from her daily routine, and now works across watercolour and traditional Chinese painting. In June 2026 she received the International Calligraphy and Painting Award at the International Art Awards Exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
- Bonnie Pun, a fellow member of the Singapore Watercolour Society, counts flowers among her favourite subjects.
This is the group’s second outing of the year. From 23 to 25 January 2026, they hung 24 watercolours at Tiong Bahru Community Centre as part of Singapore Art Week. The ION Orchard edition carries more than three times as many paintings, before counting the sketches.
One Painting, Made Twice
The most affecting work on the list has nothing to do with Singapore. Sheila visited Hong Kong’s Cheung Chau Island in 2017 and watched fishmongers haul baskets of fresh seafood up to a second-floor market while fish and shrimp dried along the harbour. She painted a small provision shop in the morning light and titled it 杂货林.
That first version went to Hong Kong for an exhibition, which was cancelled when COVID-19 broke out, and the painting was donated to charity to raise funds for Wuhan. “I never saw it again,” Sheila writes in her artist’s note. She painted it a second time while preparing for this show.
How to Win a Painting
The lucky draw has two prizes, both watercolours co-created by all four artists, and two winners will each receive one.
To enter:
1. Take a photo of yourself at the exhibition or with the exhibition poster.
2. Share it on Instagram or Facebook, tagging and following @boomerx.1960.
3. Fill in an entry slip with your name and your Instagram or Facebook username.
4. Drop the slip into the designated bowl at the exhibition.
Winners will be contacted via Instagram or Facebook after the exhibition ends. That makes it worth double-checking that the username on your slip matches the account you posted from, and watching your message requests once the show closes.
Seven days is a short run for this much work, and the organisers list the gallery as open from 10am to 10pm daily, late enough for an after-work visit on Orchard Road. Head up to ION Art gallery at ION Orchard before Wednesday, 14 October 2026, find the flamingos first, and follow @boomerx.1960 to see where the four friends set up their easels next.
🗓️ Date: 8 to 14 October 2026
⏰ Time: 10am to 10pm daily
📍 Location: ION Art gallery, Level 4, ION Orchard
🎟️ Tickets: Free admission
Photos and Visuals courtesy of ION Art.
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