Q&A: Lorette Roberts

Lorette Roberts, the British artist behind the new coffee-table book Singapore Sketches of the Lion City, gives an outsider’s perspective on the ‘little red dot’

Why Singapore?

When I visited for the first time I loved it. But I felt there had to be more than shopping and eating, so I came back again and again. I discovered the farms, the MacRitchie walks and the museums. I’m also interested in the way that different cultures and religions sit so comfortably together here. I think that’s a lesson for the world.

You sketch Orchard Road and Sentosa, but also step off the beaten track. Discover anything the average Joe might not know about the city?

Well, something totally frivolous is I found some dumplings made in the shape of a hedgehog. I mean, that’s just really silly, but it’s wonderful! They are in the Lau Pa Sat hawker centre. There are hedgehogs, and others in the shape of rabbits and octopi.

With collages and your handwritten notes in the pictures, this is almost like an illustrated map of Singapore, but in a book.

Yes, very much so. It’s a diary, really. You just open one page and it takes you straight back to where you were – you remember things, people, times, places.

And snails…

[Laughs] Yes, there’s a snail in each picture.

Why?

Just for fun.

Kind of like Where’s Wally?

Yeah, a little bit.

Singapore Sketches of the Lion City is out in bookstores now. For more information, go to www.loretteroberts.com. Roberts’ second book, A City in a Garden, comes out on 6 November, through Singapore Post outlets only.