Red Hong Yi has become famous for making use of peculiar materials to create art. She goes by the nickname of Red and belongs to Malaysia. Her latest creation is a huge portrait of ‘the Tarik man’ also known as ‘tea seller’. Teh tarik means ‘pulled tea’ in Malay and is a common drink. It is a frothy, sweet and milky tea beverage. Red created the portrait using used teabags only.
She used 20,000 teabags that she had collected and had them steeped in varying degrees of water to attain unique shades of brown. Food dye has been used for the darkest shades. The teabags went on to become affixed to the wire mesh panels in a particular order to come up with the image of teh tarik man. 10 different shades have been used in the whole project.
Teabags Arrangement
Individual stapling of teabags to wire grids was carried out in a precise order.
Wire panels being set-up.
The wire grids were made to hang from a frame that is wooden.
The final touches
You can see the canisters and a shaved ice machine located in the foreground – akin to coffee shops in Malaysia.
Here’s the complete Image.
