A Lack of Significance – A Solo Exhibition by Yeo Tze Yang

iPreciation is delighted to present a solo exhibition by emerging artist Yeo Tze Yang, titled A Lack of Significance. Born in Singapore 1994, Yeo began to paint when he was studying art history in National Junior College. As a self-taught painter, he dedicated himself to researching from books and online videos on the history, style, techniques, mediums and aesthetics of painting. It was after countless practice and experimentation with various artistic approaches that Yeo finally found his voice as a painter and his preference for oil painting. His hard work and talent paid off when his “Ah Ma’s Kitchen” oil painting was awarded the Silver prize for the UOB Painter of the Year in 2016.

This exhibition will showcase recent oil paintings that Yeo has laboriously worked on since early 2017. From an old man sitting in what seems like the middle of nowhere, an empty vegetable and fruit store to a discarded lottery ticket, Yeo continues to memorialise the lives of ordinary people, paying particular focus on the neglected in our daily lives. As a recent graduate from National University of Singapore with a Bachelor Degree in Southeast Asian studies, Yeo has been exposed to anthropology in Southeast Asia. These skills have aided him in his artistic approach towards the subject matter of his artworks, which he derived from his experiences and retrospection in Singapore and within the Southeast Asian countries he travelled to. Recognising the sentimental value within the forgotten and neglected persons, objects and places of his immediate surroundings, he finds it worthwhile to paint their stories.

Avoiding contemporary conceptual approaches to art, he instead reverts back to a more direct and emotive approach to painting. The result of such a process is an accumulation of images, thoughts, emotions, stories and memories, that in turn become allegories of both the artist’s life and the stories that his audiences weave into his works. Yeo’s works are in the collection of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States and in the UOB collection.