Use your illusion: An artist brings black-and-white creativity to decorate an artsy café

CBC

05-04-2025

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A Moncton-area artist has collaborated with a local business to making a café space look like a walk-in colouring book.
Customers and their food may be the only colours in the virtually two-dimensional Tambayan Café, which opens later this month in Riverview.
When a visitor encounters the furniture in this three-dimensional space, it appears to be a 2D drawing on paper. Looks, though, can be deceiving: the depth in the two-dimensional wall drawings gives an illusion of 3D.
Ji Hyang Ryu said it took her about two weeks — and two litres of black paint — to turn the white walls into an artistic illusion.
She said it was her first time working on such a concept, as well on an area this large.
"I actually put [my] camera in front of the wall, so I was looking through camera ... I had to keep thinking about what [the viewer will] see."
Ryu said it took her a week to finish the digital designs after she saw the space.
The process was a back-and-forth conversation between Ryu and owner Mary Anne Catipon, who presented some ideas as Ryu used her creativity to build upon them.
WATCH | Immersive art 'feels like you are actually in different places around the world':
This new Riverview café is straight out of a colouring book
8 hours ago
Duration 2:11
The walls of Tambayan Café are a black-and-white optical illusion thanks to the work of local artist Ji Hyang Ryu.
The drawings were inspired by places like the Mediterranean island of Santorini, a view of Dubai, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Ryu said she first sketched on the walls using charcoal and later painted on the lines using a brush.
"Making nice straight [lines] was the hardest because you have to measure from the end to the end," said Ryu, who usually draws a freehanded approach.
She placed a pin on both ends of the line and ran a string between them to use it as a stencil to draw on the large walls.
She said the walls have hidden mistakes under the white paint, but she also tried to paint a cat wherever she could fit them throughout the café.
"If you keep searching, you will find cats," said Ryu. "Lots of cats."
There is also a mouse: Jerry, from the cartoon duo Tom & Jerry, is there in a location that so far has been kept a secret. There is also a bookshelf, with the names of actual books, as well as Ryu's signature in several spots.
Catipon said her customers can explore the elements during a contest the café plans to conduct.
She said the café's concept was also inspired from places she visited in Japan and South Korea. The café will offer some unique snacks, coffee products and more than 30 flavours of bubble tea, said Catipon.
She said the venture also allowed her family to get a bit artistic. She, her husband and the café manager painted all the furniture and lamps in a manner that gives them a two-dimensional illusion.
Catipon said she discovered her entrepreneurial idea while working in the food industry in her former home in the Philippines.