Willow Tree

I was sitting under this tree when I tipped my head back and stayed there — and the whole canopy turned into one of those moments you don't want to leave. The trunk twisted upward in deep cinnamon and rust, peeling and ridged, and above it the foliage exploded outward in long strokes of acid green and lemon, the sky barely showing through at all. Working with oils on a tall canvas, I let the trunk and branches stay anatomical and warm — every twist of bark, every elbow of growth — and worked the foliage in fast, radiating brushstrokes, almost like a wind moving outward from the centre of the tree.

Looking up into a tree is one of the oldest ways humans have remembered to be small in a good way. Pulled in close to a single trunk, you stop measuring yourself against everything else and just feel held by something that's been quietly photosynthesising for decades. I wanted to give you that moment, the one where you remember to look up.

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Min Leong is a painter born in Kuching, Malaysia and based in Sydney. His work centres on landscape from Malaysian forests to Australian coastlines. His paintings demonstrate a confident, expressive approach to colour — often pushing beyond naturalistic palettes into saturated purples, pinks, and oranges that capture the intense light of the Australian environment.

Leong gravitates toward subjects that emphasise the vertical and the immersive: towering eucalypts seen from below, dense rainforest canopies, and expansive vistas from elevated viewpoints. His work conveys a direct engagement with place and an interest in how light transforms the familiar into something vivid and heightened.