Nostalgic paintings wow collectors

EVEN before the opening of his first solo show at OCBC Art Space last Friday, painter Hilmi Johandi has sold five of the eight paintings being displayed at the bank's Chulia Street head office lobby.

The artist, who graduated last year from Lasalle College of the Arts, has been gaining good notices for his evocative, sepia-tinted paintings that hark back to an earlier Singapore. And collectors have been quick to snap up the works priced from $3,400 to $4,800.

Indeed, three paintings were bought by The Watch Fund co-founder Dominic Khoo alone, who says: "The paintings make you stop and look at them carefully. They remind me of the kind of photographs I used to take myself…