Hong Sek Chern is best known for her architectural paintings of buildings and structures. Using Chinese ink as her medium of choice, she explores linear, non-linear and multi-point perspectives of urban landscapes. Known for her ink paintings depicting interior and exterior spaces of local architecture, Hong juxtaposes urban structures across different times and distances to explore notions of the old and new.
16 Cantonment Road demonstrates the use of multi-point perspective to create pictorial and abstract compositions. Hong illustrates this view of the cityscape from the standpoint of a HDB block at Cantonment Road. To the artist, she imagines this to be the same view Autumn Radtke, First Meta's Chief Executive Officer, saw before taking her life in her Singapore home. In this artwork, the artist posits the question, "When we are faced with troubles, do we see despair or hope?"