Yavuz Gallery is excited to present Sunny weather, blue water day spa, Yeo Kaa's fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition is held in conjunction with Singapore Art Gallery Weekend.
Yeo Kaa is one of the leading painters in Southeast Asia, whose signature candy-coloured style celebrates various emotional complexities that range from resistance, rebellion, anxiety, contemplation, and the individual.
A central and recurring character in Yeo Kaa's works is a big-eyed girl, which functions as an extension of the artist's personality and an anonymous figure that lends itself to the representation of anyone who identifies with the sentiments the artist purges in her works. She is known for mixing a vibrant palette with doll-like figuration with jarring imagery – to shock and evoke discomfort to some, while easing the sensitivity of confronting real-life horrors to others. At times, her compositions find expression for the taboos and the unspeakable while conversely, they also act as the artist's cathartic release, for an incisive examination of the various pressures of self-identity, sexuality and society. It is the tension between the pleasant and naïve, and the dreadful and irreverent where Yeo Kaa locates her art's potency.
In her recent works, Yeo Kaa has turned to "a more empowering tenor with bold declarations of positivity and upliftment – from cultivating one's inner strength, recognising affirmation from others, and celebrating the small things that help us keep going in life" shares Ryan Francis Reyes, in his accompanying curatorial essay 'Rest If You Must'.
"This exhibition continues to express the artist's newfound outlook – not with the stance of moving forward but its opposite. Centred on the idea of taking a break or rest, the collection of works stresses the necessity of a pause or downtime, a temporary stop from pursuing a course to ultimately accomplish the desired goal" continued Reyes.
A perfect dichotomy of colour and torment, Filipino artist Yeo Kaa (b. 1989) paints deceptively candy-coloured characters stuck in violent states of reality. Her stylised figuration brings to mind animation and fictional characters from children's books, a fantasy world that exists only in dreams and imagination. Yet these elements cleverly camouflage haunting and daring images: a tableau reminiscent of a crime scene, decapitated and dismembered bodies, or an insane person out of a killing spree. Such provocative combination of contrasting temperaments may well refer to a world full of contradictions, a world where darker tendencies of human nature are masked by misleading façades and are lurking beneath pleasant veneers.
Ames Yavuz embraces its diverse cultural background through a strong international focus and perspective. The gallery’s vision is underpinned by robust curatorial practices that form the core of our program and foster intercultural discourse on a global scale.
