BITE SIZE

Food miniaturist Eric Siow evokes nostalgic memories through his teeny-tiny sculptures

- Katelyn Tan

The more I look at Eric Siow’s dioramas, the more details I pick out. I met the soft-spoken artist in MinNature for the first time, an exhibition housing some of his work, which focuses on food as a medium. Delicate sticks of satay a tenth of their actual size lay on a grill, tins of Milo smaller than my thumb and plastic containers of air Bandung grace a metal table, while matchsticks of youtiao sizzle in woks of hot oil.

While Siow has always been in the creative industry (he was previously a graphic designer based in Singapore), working with clay first began as a hobby. “I came upon the craft when I read about it in the newspaper while I was on the MRT,” he recalls.