Yeo Shih Yun, Artist
Venue: Warehouse Hotel, Singapore
We were so pleased to meet Shih Yun at her pop-up exhibition and launch of her new book, Inkpulse: The Art of Yeo Shih Yun, a labour of love that was impressively, partly crowd-funded. She’s the founder of Instinc Gallery and has been described by collectors as being a “dedicated artist.”
Tell us about your outfit.
I’m wearing Depression, it’s a local label and my favourite. I’ve been wearing their clothes since they first started, and I love black and white.
Did you pick your outfit to match your monograph, or the ink works displayed here?
Not really, I just wanted to buy something. I went to Orchard Gateway and I saw this shirt. My trousers are from Zara. The shoes are from Hong Kong, from Puma. They’re a collaboration with design company SWASH LONDON, and are limited edition.
Why did you decide to wear this outfit today, at the launch of your own monograph?
I thought it was just interesting, it’s not a regular kind of shirt, and I love these flaps:
In my artwork, there is a lot of movement, and with these flaps, there is movement in the clothes too.
Tell us about this work:
This is called The Voice of Emerald – it’s silkscreen on linen and site-specific as it was created for this show. There’s actually a light box underneath. The silkscreen was created when I used a large brush and painted on positive film. The film, I had to bring to a silkscreen factory, and the strokes are made with Chinese ink. Such ink isn’t supposed to stay on the plastic film so when I sent the film to the silk screen factory, the ink would flake off. I liked this surprise, this discovery when the ink flaked off and cracked.
It almost looks like a rubbing and it can’t be recreated – which is what I think the beauty of it is. I love these kinds of surprises and randomness, and to me, it’s like a collaboration between myself and the silkscreen process.
My works are abstract and open-ended. If you think you are able to see something in them, then that’s great.
Whatever you think it is, it is! I’m not certainly not going to tell you what I think it is.
