99 Francs · The first night
99 Francs remembers the artist’s arrival in Berlin in 2018. A bottle of wine brought from the airport became a conversation with a French woman at his Airbnb, followed by a visit to a Russian bar-lounge. The French book and film they discussed gave the work its title.
Revaler Straße 99 · RAW
Revaler Straße 99 leads to the RAW cultural hub in Friedrichshain. Its old industrial buildings, graffiti, music and free spirits became lasting memories of the artist’s stay.
The journey of a palette
My Love began with Gentleman Nº1 in March 2023. For 99 Francs in June, Lemonhaze sampled those colors, lightened the sand, deepened the red, blue and turquoise, and removed the faux-fuchsia.
After using this palette in Old-Fashioned, Oaxaca and Unregulated Minds, he introduced Deep Pink (#E91E63) for Five Roses in January 2024. The palette ties these works together across collections.
From Berlin to Saigon · A composition evolves
The hand-drawn Berlin works continued to shape Lemonhaze’s compositions in From Berlin to Saigon. An interest in dark, ink-like structures and reflective shapes carried through drawing, AI and eventually p5.js.
A June 2024 visit to HOKMA in Hong Kong brought another connection: characters he could not read became abstract marks to his eye. Paper, ink and brush pens fed the visual feeling he later pursued in an output generated in Saigon.