This story is about a Malaysian artist finding his way back to art, family and community and discovering that coming back doesn’t mean returning to who you were, but becoming someone more open to connection, collaboration and what comes next.
In Real Life Malaysia recently had the opportunity to attend the unveiling of Richie Tan’s comeback event, an intimate evening built around an unusual proposition: what happens when wine becomes the paint?
On 31 May 2026, thirty guests gathered at Château Dionne in Kuala Lumpur for an evening that was difficult to categorise. There was wine, live performance art, an auction, and at the centre of it all, a young Malaysian artist named Richie Tan painting in real time using wine as his medium.
The event was called A New Vintage, and it marked Richie’s return to the art scene after nearly a year away. For those who had followed his earlier work – live performances at cigar lounges, features in Free Malaysia Today and China Press, a growing reputation built entirely from scratch at 22 years old – his absence had been noticeable and his comeback was anything but spectacular.
Described as a modern expressionist who paints with the symbols of refined living such as cigars, wine and other objects associated with a considered life, and turns them into instruments of expression, Richie brought that same sensibility to A New Vintage. Welcome wine and light bites were served before the performance, courtesy of the evening’s host David Lim, and there was plenty of good-natured banter before things got serious.
Each guest contributed a glass from their bottle to the painting, meaning the final artwork was created collectively by the room. By the end of the evening, the completed canvas was put up for auction and went home with one of the guests.
We sat down with Richie after the evening to talk about the work, the year away, and what comes next.
On the painting
The concept behind A New Vintage came from a simple observation about wine and time. “Sometimes you keep a bottle for 30 or 40 years and when you finally open it, it becomes a vintage,” Richie explains. “You look back and think, wow, this is how I started. You remember who you were, what you experienced, and what made you who you are today.”
The bubbles formed by the wine moving across the canvas represented chapters of a life, each one unknown until you are living it. “Every bubble has its own story,” he says. “We don’t know what the next chapter will be, just like we don’t know what is inside the next bottle.”
Executing the concept was harder than it sounds. Richie had never painted with wine before the night of the event. He spent two weeks researching, tried boiling the wine to thicken it based on advice he found online, stood in his kitchen dizzy from the fumes, and concluded it did not work. He left the problem alone until the morning of the event, when he tested it properly and decided to go with the flow.
The hairdryer came on the spot. Wine being a liquid, he needed it to dry fast, and when he turned the dryer on and watched the wine begin moving across the canvas in patterns he had not planned, he built on it layer by layer. “I never thought it would move like that,” he says. “Once I blew it and it started to move, I was like wait, that’s actually pretty nice.”
This event also marked a first for Richie in another way. In past live performances, he says, he was completely absorbed by the canvas the moment he started painting. This time he talked through the process as he worked, explaining each layer as it formed. “I was surprised that I could do it,” he says. “And I genuinely enjoyed it.”
By the end of the evening there was awe, amazement, and plenty of good-natured teasing along the way. The wine, the movement, the layers and the bubbles had come together into something that felt appropriately imperfect and alive, a record of a moment that could not quite be repeated.
On the year away
Richie’s absence from the art scene was not a creative block or a career setback. It was a deliberate choice.
He spent the year helping his grandfather manage a 20-acre durian and mangosteen farm in Negeri Sembilan, ten to twelve hour days, cutting grass, working the land in an ecosystem approach that avoids chemical fertilisers entirely. His grandfather has farmed this way for decades, choosing quality over volume, and Richie showed up to help carry that forward.
“My grandfather is getting older and I live with my grandparents,” he says. “I started thinking about the limited time we have with them. Once your family is gone, you can’t get that time back.”
Before the year away, Richie says his focus was on building something that would outlast him ,a legacy, and a proof that he could do it alone. The time on the farm changed that. “I realised that legacy isn’t everything,” he says. “Family comes first.”
Sunday was his only day off during that period. A New Vintage happened on a Sunday. “I don’t want people to forget about me as an artist,” he says simply. “So I chose Sunday.”
On what comes next
Richie is not coming back to do what he did before. The ambition is still there but the vision behind it has changed.
He wants art, clothing and food to exist together, paintings, hand-painted jackets and shirts through his clothing brand Escape, and seasonal fruit from the family farm. A one-stop destination, he calls it, though he is quick to clarify that the point is less about what he offers and more about who he is becoming. “It’s not really what I want,” he says. “It’s who I want to become.”
A fashion show is planned for the fourth quarter of this year, combining his art with fashion in a collaboration he has been building towards. And for the first time, he is genuinely open to creating with other people rather than proving he can do it alone.
“Before, I wanted to prove that I could do it far and alone,” he says. “Now I realise that the best things might come from sincere collaboration from people bringing their own strengths, stories and perspectives together.”
He pauses, then adds: “I’m coming back, but I’m not coming back as the same person.”
Richie Tan is an abstract expressionist artist based between Negeri Sembilan and Kuala Lumpur. Each painting in his portfolio is a one-of-a-kind original, never recreated, with prices ranging from RM4,000 to RM50,000. Commissioned pieces and hand-painted clothing are also available. Follow Richie on Instagram for updates on his upcoming fashion show and seasonal farm produce.
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Read also: ‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman – In Real Life
https://inreallife.my/i-gave-up-my-family-to-pursue-my-dreams-shares-34-yo-msian-woman/
‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman
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