When Geraldine Toh painted her first mural in her childhood bedroom, she didn’t know she would one day be renowned for her unique botanical creations gracing Singapore’s walls. Trained as a visual artist, she kickstarted her professional journey back in 2019, when she began sharing glimpses of a mural on Instagram, which she was painting as part of her home renovation. Other homeowners started following her journey and requesting murals for their own abodes, placing her in a niche she never expected: residential and commercial murals characterised by her signature botanicals.
Toh draws inspiration from nature and enchanting landscapes, incorporating earthy hues and soothing textures. Beyond her statement murals, she’s also worked on multiple commissioned paintings and other artistic projects to date, always retaining her characteristic organic colour palette and style.
True Colours
Being known for a particular style and subject matter can be a double-edged sword for an artist. As Toh has experienced firsthand, people question her ability to paint beyond her preferences at times. “Of course I can paint something else; as long as you have the right technique and skills, you can essentially create anything,” she says. In her eyes, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean you should. “I prefer being known for a stronger creative identity or a certain aesthetic rather than being a jack of all trades, master of none.”
By refining her artistic identity, she has gained clarity on what truly draws people to her work. Where many budding artists struggle to define who they are, Toh appears self-assured and deeply in tune with every stroke and colour choice.
Breaking away from her signature earthy palette, Geraldine reimagines botanicals in cool tones for RIOS Architecture’s office — a refreshing take on her mural practice. Photo: Geraldine Toh
This confidence has allowed her to take on new projects that lie somewhat out of her comfort zone while staying true to her style at heart, including a recent mural completed for an architecture firm’s office. “What excited me so much about this project was that it was quite different from my usual commissions,” Toh shares. “They asked for a cool colour scheme, whereas I’m known for very warm, earthy tones, and a different selection of botanicals. This mural was super refreshing for me because it was so different. Plus, I got to research new types of flowers!”
While Toh stands out in Singapore’s artistic landscape, she finds inspiration in the works done by many of her peers, including Yip Yew Chong, Tiffany Lovage, Tobyato, Ripple Root, and Priscilla Tey. She also keeps an eye on the talented artists working overseas, naming Lilit Sarkisian, Tanya Bonya, Ciclope, and Arty Guava as some of her favourites.
These artists inspire her not just in the visuals she creates, but also in how she sees and advocates for herself in the scene. This has been particularly important to her recently, placing more emphasis on her value as an individual after creating domestic content with her partner for some time. “Since earlier this year, the face of The Ochre Home has been just me,” she points out. “I want to be recognised a little bit more for my work, as an individual and a creative.”
Geraldine shares that even as an established artist, she still faces rejections — a side not often seen online. Yet, she finds beauty in the uncertainty, seeing it as a space filled with possibility and potential.
The Path to Creativity
While interiors still form part of her repertoire, Toh is leaning more heavily on her love for the paintbrush this year, embracing the creative and collaborative potential it allows her to explore. “There are a lot more restrictions with interiors because, at the end of the day, it’s meant to be a livable space,” she reflects. “With art collaborations, the boundaries are a little bit more blurred, and we can push for new ideas that have not been seen yet.”
She’s also dipping her toes in other applications of her artistic eye, spanning fashion, packaging, installations, displays, and more. The story behind a piece, and the challenge that comes with creating it, tends to intrigue her to pick up unconventional projects, pushing and evolving her art. “This is what helps you realise what works and what doesn’t as an artist. For example, when I design a mural for an F&B space, the considerations are completely different from when I’m designing apparel,” Toh explains. “For apparel, other considerations kick in, like whether this colour is wearable or this print is too large. My style has become more adaptable as I learn to paint on different types of surfaces and stretch my creativity to try different expressions and motifs.”
One recent project she highlights is the Journey collection, created for the fifth anniversary of lifestyle brand Our Barehands. “I wasn’t purely a print designer; it was a shared effort in conceptualising the silhouettes, testing the material samples, and so forth, which created a very strong sense of ownership for me,” she recounts. This has encouraged her to seek out similar collaborations going forward, envisioning her art across storefronts, product design, and unique installations. Coming from a fine art background, working with museums and galleries excites her as well.
No matter the medium or context she creates in, Toh never knows how her next project may inspire something surprising. Unexpected ideas and combinations tend to pop up in her imagination, like mural motifs as pocket accents on apparel. Should someone approach her to work on a particular collaboration in the future, these ideas are waiting for her, ready to be dug out of the archives.
Dreaming Big
Where some artists and designers may have a particular object they would love to create one day, Toh’s dreams are more conceptual. Her ideal vision involves a storefront painting, possibly for a temporary pop-up space. “That’s where brands actually look for artists to do wild things, because it’s temporary, right?” Pushing the thought further, she imagines a fashion show, with her vibrant artwork defining the backdrop or even worn on the catwalk itself. “What I’m looking for is a more comprehensive and very immersive type of experience with my art, versus it just being a single product,” she continues. “The thing is, you need quite a high budget to be able to spend so much money on a single launch or pop-up and to experiment like that, and not every brand may be willing to spare that.”
While the city holds plenty of opportunities for work, making art in Singapore also means that creativity can, at times, be held back by the limitations of physical space. Toh considers the access international artists often have to grander structures, allowing them to create large-scale, experimental façades. Having previously completed a mural painting for a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, she’s very keen to continue exploring opportunities overseas, but being a foreign artist comes with its own challenges. “Mural festivals and things like that overseas tend to have a quota for how many international artists can participate, which makes it very competitive,” she shares. “It’s difficult to make a name for yourself overseas; I just wish Singapore had more of these kinds of opportunities.”
Geraldine brings her signature botanicals to Lloyd’s Inn KL, blending art and atmosphere in a mural that feels both grounding and transportive.
Beyond pursuing bigger collaborations and expanding internationally, Toh primarily hopes to focus on personal projects in the coming year. “Looking back on the past five years, I haven’t had time to sit down and create something that is 100% mine,” she shares. Finding the right balance between commissioned projects and personal art has been tricky, and it’s certainly a challenge many professional and aspiring artists are familiar with. “I need to pay the bills, and when someone comes to me with an opportunity, I can’t say no in favour of a personal project that I haven’t even conceptualised,” she tells us. “Before I know it, my calendar starts filling up for the next two, three months, and then I tell myself, okay, never mind, I will start working on my personal project in the next quarter… I think what I need to do is set aside pockets of time every week or month, while my calendar remains open to commissions.”
Toh’s personal project may not quite be in the works yet, but she’s got a rough vision for it in the back of her mind. She tells us it’s going to be inspired by fauna, with a possible link to an animal charity. She’s happy to take her time figuring it out, just like she has in building her career over the past few years.
“A lot of people ask me if I already knew what I wanted to do when I started doing this, whether I planned it this way. My answer is always, no, I didn’t wake up one day and decide I wanted to be a botanical mural artist! It’s a journey of discovering yourself, experimenting, and trying out different projects,” she muses. It doesn’t always go her way, either, and that’s something she has grown to accept along her journey. “I still face rejections—I think that’s one side that people don’t see online. I like to think that there’s a little bit of beauty and excitement in not knowing what’s next; there are a lot of possibilities and potential that can come out of that.”
Explore more of Geraldine Toh’s botanical murals and artistic collaborations at The Ochre Home.
