Custom Paintings for Southeast Asian Homes

The brief we hear most often is the same in Ubud, Kamala, Bangsar and Siem Reap. The owner wants the room to feel like it belongs where it is, without turning into a souvenir shop. One calm, large piece per room. Greens, sand, cream and water tones that sit quietly next to teak, rattan, terrazzo and linen. Local feeling carried by light and plants rather than by a mask on every wall.

The condo version of that brief, in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Manila, is the same idea in a smaller frame. Less wall, more light, and usually a pair of paintings instead of one big one. Both briefs point at the same thing: real paint on real canvas, so the wall has texture and depth that a print flattens out. If the brief calls for shan shui, koi or peonies instead, that side of the catalog lives on our art for Chinese homes page.

We also paint a lacquer look on canvas: deep red, black and gold, worked in acrylic or oil. Be clear on what that is. Real Vietnamese son mai is lacquer on board, built up and sanded over many layers, and it is a living art form with its own artists. What we can do is an oil or acrylic painting that carries that palette and that glow. We will not call it lacquerware, and we would send you a sample photo before you commit a room set to it.

This matters more here than anywhere else we sell, so we will be direct about it.

We do not paint Buddha figures or Buddha heads as decor. In Thailand the Buddha is a religious figure, not an ornament. Bangkok’s airport carries signage saying Buddha is not for decoration, insulting religion is covered by the Thai Criminal Code, and newly made Buddha images above a certain size need an export permit from the Fine Arts Department. We stay out of that entirely. If a temple or a religious community commissions devotional work, that is a different conversation and you should tell us so at the start.

We do paint temple architecture. Roof tiers, a chedi silhouette at dusk, a Balinese candi bentar gate, carved stone in raking light. Buildings and landscape, treated with care.

Balinese Hindu figures are not a catalog line. Barong, Rangda, Garuda and the deities are living religious figures, not decoration. We will paint them only for a buyer who asks for them specifically and knows what they are asking for. We also do not imitate the Kamasan, Ubud or Batuan painting schools. Those are living traditions with named local artists, and copying them would take work away from the people who own it.

Batik gets treated as heritage. Indonesian batik is on the UNESCO heritage list, and many motifs belong to a region or a court. Parang, for example, was historically reserved for Javanese royalty. So we paint batik-inspired abstraction, we do not reproduce a specific traditional motif.

Vietnam and the Philippines. We avoid political imagery entirely. Catholic devotional subjects such as the Santo Nino or the Virgin Mary are painted only when a buyer asks for them.

Tropical daylight is bright and slightly green under a canopy, and villa walls are usually white, limewash or teak. Paintings that look strong on a screen can bleach out on that wall. Our usual advice is to pick a palette with a clear dark note in it, greens against cream, teal against sand, so the piece still holds together at midday.

We can recolor any catalog design. A floral can shift to lotus pink and teal. A green valley can go deeper and cooler for a rice terrace feel. A bright abstract can drop to sage and clay for a treatment room.

We also color match. Send a paint code, a sarong, a cushion swatch or a photo of your linen. We mix the color, photograph it under daylight and send you that photo for approval before we start painting. That step is the one that stops a 30 piece order going wrong. You can read how it works on our color matched painting page.

You have three finishes. Rolled in a tube is the cheapest way to ship volume, especially above about 20 pieces, and a local framer in Bali, Bangkok or KL can stretch them for you on arrival. Stretched on solid wood bars arrives ready to hang. Framed comes in black, white, wood, silver or gold at the same price. Heavy texture ships stretched or framed, because rolling thick impasto is not something we recommend.

On humidity we would rather be useful than confident. Coastal and monsoon air is hard on stretched canvas and on wood, and we have not run a long term test in a beachfront villa, so we are not going to publish a durability claim we cannot back up. Ask us directly about varnish and about backing when you enquire, tell us the property is coastal, and we will tell you plainly what we do and do not know before you order 40 pieces.

Packing is by tube, stretched, framed or wooden crate. We confirm the crate count with you before transport is booked, so the freight quote you get is based on real numbers.

Most of the work we do for this region does not come out of the catalog. It comes from a photo the buyer took. Your own drone shot of the Tegalalang terraces, a corner of your garden in Ubud, the view from your villa at 6am, a Pinterest board, a render from your designer, an AI image, a page torn out of a magazine. We paint from any of them, and we can combine several photos into one composition, for example your rice valley with the sky from a different morning. Paintings of a place that matters to you have their own page, travel and place paintings.

1. Send it Email the image or images to support@palettemomento.com, or message us on WhatsApp using the number in the site header. Tell us the wall size, the finish and how many pieces.
2. We reply WhatsApp replies are usually immediate; email replies usually arrive within 12 hours, with the size options, the finish and the production time for your quantity.
3. Color proof If you are matching a fabric or a paint code, we mix the color, photograph it under daylight and send you the photo for approval.
4. Sample if it is a big job For a first order or a large project we paint one piece first. The sample cost comes back to you on any order of 10 pieces or more.
5. Photos before shipping We photograph every finished canvas and send the photos. You approve, then it ships. For commissions we send progress photos while it is on the easel.

More on how that works on our photo to painting page. If you want to browse first, our floral and botanical collection holds the leaves, lotus and garden pieces that suit this region best, and any of them can be resized or recolored. Buyers furnishing calm minimal interiors often look at art for Japanese homes alongside this page.