of distances and absences
Exhibition essay for
GHOSTS & ABSENCES: An exhibition by Gan Siong King and Yeo Tze Yang
By Yeo Tze Yang
Diving headfirst
The pivotal moment for when I decided I wanted to become an artist came at 18 during the mid-year school holidays of 2012, as I prepared for my Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (or Singapore-Cambridge GCE A-Level) coursework. I recall tossing and turning in bed the night before my first day of painting at the art room in the empty school campus, a little too eager to make my first strokes on the canvas, not because of deadlines but because it’s just what I really felt like doing. That was the instant when I realised that art was something I wanted to pursue, regardless of how challenging or uncertain the journey might be.
I remember that it wasn’t easy to commit to this desire publicly, either to myself or to anyone else. Becoming an artist is unheard of. The stereotype of the starving artist lingers in the minds of most Singaporeans. But I also approached it pragmatically: I had two years of National Service (NS) and then four years of university to figure out how to turn art into a viable career before the social pressure to "get a real job" would start to mount. When people asked, I’d often sheepishly say I was just "seeing how things went," and if things didn’t turn out as I hoped, I’d find something “more practical” to do. But that’s just what I told others. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t truly considering a fallback. I wasn’t weighing my options — I was fully committed to pursuing this path, no matter what.
Zai Kuning, Loosing oneself to be with it and taken away by it. Venice International Performance Art Week (2014)© Zai Kuning. Photo courtesy of Monika Sobczak.
Painting in the shadow of conceptual art
In the early 2010s, not many contemporary artists in Singapore painted. If many artists who end up as painters paint because that is what they were taught to do in school, then I feel like the circumstances that brought me to painting were the polar opposite. I never felt obligated to become a painter; in fact, it was seen as rather unpopular and uncool at the time. This was a Singapore contemporary art scene that prioritised ideas over the act of making. The art scene was dominated by figures of conceptualism and performance art, like Tang Da Wu, Zai Kuning, Amanda Heng, and Lee Wen. Their ability to perform bizarre acts in public, often for little or no pay, was impressive. They were the Real Contemporary Artists. This way of making art was seen as pure, real and honest, untainted by financial interests of the art market. For many young and artsy people, they were our local heroes. In a fit of youthful idealism, I remember pompously declaring to a bewildered schoolmate on the MRT after school one day that selling art was a moral crime.
But I eventually began to question certain contemporary norms. Why did art have to be so obscure to be taken seriously? Was it really immoral to make money from one’s artistic practice? Did everyone watching a performance artist covered in blue paint while punching a piece of cheese truly understand what was happening? Was it a case of the emperor's new clothes? Everyone may simply be reluctant to admit that they don’t understand what’s happening, out of fear of appearing ignorant or out of touch with the cultural zeitgeist.
YouTube in the 2000s was a democratizing force, unlocking a vast sea of moving images for many. For nobodies like myself, it made artist interviews and documentaries suddenly accessible in a way they had never been before.
The internet opened my eyes to the world of contemporary painting. By the 2010s, I could find a variety of artist videos on YouTube, from short interviews to illegally uploaded documentaries. I found artists who could poke fun at themselves to be more genuine. Among the artists I came to admire, many shared a similar sentiment about art: they didn’t want their work to condescend; they aimed to communicate in a visual language accessible to everyone, whether or not you have a PhD in art history or a “cultured” upbringing, without oversimplifying their message or underestimating their audience.
This philosophy resonated with me, perhaps due to my own left-leaning politics. I felt it was crucial — or perhaps simply more rebellious and punk — to emphasise the act of making itself within the context of contemporary art. Painting felt like a language that could connect with a broader audience, more than an esoteric performance or installation art at least, making it the natural choice for me, both spiritually and ideologically.
Yeo Tze Yang, The Path Out (2013) © Yeo Tze Yang
Figuring painting out
So, I began to paint in a Singapore art scene where very few artists did painting, especially figurative painting. I’ll never forget the moment I truly understood how to paint. It was during my NS in 2013. I took a sick leave that day — whether I was actually sick or not, I don’t quite remember. After months of experimenting with various styles and techniques, I decided to challenge myself by painting a path outside my childhood home en plein air, just like I’d seen artists do in books and YouTube videos. After hauling out my easel, canvas, paints, and brushes, I stood there sweating in the thick tropical heat, relentlessly bitten by mosquitoes. Any concern for style or making the work look a certain way quickly dissolved. All that mattered was getting the paint down, quickly and clearly, just enough to make something recognisable before escaping the heat and the swarms.
That experience illuminated the way forward in my approach to painting. In that regard, the concept of “style” doesn’t mean much to me. What does it even mean? Is it just about always using a red outline in painting, or attaching a Doraemon figure to every sculpture? It seems like an artificial construct, a contrived image of "personal style".
In a similar vein, I’ve also been asked before, “Tze Yang, when are you gonna change the way you paint?” I felt perplexed by that question. I’m not interested in making abrupt changes in theme or stylistic leaps just for the sake of novelty. After all, isn’t that the saying — all style and no substance? For me, artists have an intrinsic visual language within them — a deeper core that inevitably reveals itself, no matter how the surface of the artwork looks, similar to handwriting. The surface of an artist’s works will constantly evolve naturally; one does not need to force it simply for the sake of difference.
I value this intuitive, no-nonsense approach to painting. Looking back, I think it might stem from not having gone to art school. It’s not about rejecting academic training, but rather that my artistic foundation is free from the pressure of constantly having to justify myself to others. I dab the brush into a blob of burnt sienna, a bit of titanium white, I splat it onto the canvas, it’s too dry, I dab the brush into the linseed oil, and apply that to that spot I just painted, mix it all around, and let the process unfold. The outcome is arbitrary; my focus lies in transforming blobs of colour into something tangible, whether it’s a face, a street, or a dead rat on the dark, grey asphalt.
Me with my works at Affordable Art Fair in 2014
The times they’re a changin’
Changes were underway in Singapore in the 2010s, gradually pivoting away from the era of artists rejecting commercial success as unethical. In 2011, Art Stage came to Singapore, and the Gillman Barracks Art Gallery Cluster opened the following year. International galleries began establishing themselves here, bringing expensive art into the mix. Some artists who once made proclamations against the commodification of art found themselves represented by international galleries and did well at Art Stage.
As a young artist, I found myself riding this wave of change. By 2013-2014, more affluent Singaporeans developed a taste for art collecting, and to my surprise and delight, I began selling my paintings. This was encouraging; it affirmed that being true to myself as an artist resonated with others. What could be better than creating honest work that I loved and also making a living from it?
I’ve often felt that my journey as an artist has developed alongside the evolving cultural landscape of Singapore. Unbound by any particular clique or teachings, I never felt pressured to conform to trends or traditions. In my early days, I often faced limitations due to finances, space, and the size of my works, but I never felt burdened by the weight of art history.
Eric Fischl, The Sheer Weight Of History (1982) © Eric Fischl
Affinities and disconnections
There is a painting by American artist Eric Fischl titled The Sheer Weight Of History (1982). It depicts a boy in a museum, sitting under a marble sculpture. Characteristic of Fischl’s work, especially his early stuff, the sculpted figure is voluptuously painted, yet there’s a certain awkwardness to the way the boy is painted that makes the work intriguing. The juxtaposition of the boy and the sculpture, coupled with the painting's title, suggests a contemplation of history's enduring and perhaps even overbearing influence. The boy, a representative of the present, sits under the imposing figure of the past.
Fischl’s journey parallels my own: he chose to be a figurative painter in the 1970s when abstraction dominated the American art scene. Never formally trained in figuration, many of his early pieces possess a certain awkwardness and almost childlike quality, yet he firmly asserts his identity as a figurative artist. This initial awkwardness in his figures is thus understandable, and adds uniqueness to his figuration.
There are aspects of his story that strike a chord with me: feeling disconnected from Singapore’s art community, not coming from an art school background, and identifying as a painter in a crowd of conceptual and performance artists. My artistic journey has largely been solitary. This isn’t to downplay the support I’ve received over the years, but when I compare my experience to what I observed in Jogja — where artist collectives and art spaces flourish and everyone seems to know one another — it feels very different from my own experience as an artist.
My first trip to Jogja, hanging out at Kedai Kebun Forum with new friends.
Painting, from a distance
Speaking of distances in art making, there’s another angle I find interesting. I’ve always found it interesting how oil painting, a tradition from far away, i.e. the west, has come to mean so much to me.
After all, oil painting arrived in Southeast Asia through European colonisers and Christian missionaries, who introduced the medium and its techniques through schools and institutions where art education, including oil painting, was taught. Increased trade and cultural interactions with Europe facilitated the spread of oil painting and its materials over time.
While there’s a rich history of modern art in Southeast Asia, with various movements and groups seeking to redefine artistic mediums — like the Nanyang movement or Indonesia’s nationalistic movements — I can’t claim to belong to those lineages of artists. Although I’ve often been associated with the Nanyang movement in Singapore, much to my annoyance, I’ve never lived under colonial rule or grown up in a culture where the west felt like an obscure foreign entity.
So far, so close
In fact, the west has always been a significant presence in my life. I grew up speaking English as my first language, listening to Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses, and watching Toy Story and Star Wars. I never listened to Chinese music and often needed English subtitles to understand Chinese films. Malay culture was even more distant, as non-Malay Singaporeans don’t learn the language in school. Besides a mother tongue class, all classes were held in English. While the culture of “Singaporean Chinese” influenced my life through Chinese-language classes, family and food, it never defined my entire identity. Many of my peers feel the same way.
In art history class for A-Levels, our lessons began with Greece and Rome, followed by the Italian Renaissance — not Southeast Asia, China, India, or anywhere else. Contemporary art was represented by British artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, with Southeast Asian artists being more of an afterthought. For those who pursued art education abroad, whether through scholarships or parental support, it was typically in the UK.
For my generation, there’s little sense of identity crisis regarding our relationship with the west, though it’s recently become more socially appropriate to critique western colonialism and imperialism, often while simultaneously rebranding oneself to align with prevailing cultural trends.
Why mention all this? Because oil painting entered my life quite simply. The oil paint tubes were just there in a box in my junior college art room, with pre-stretched canvases stacked nearby. That room reeked of oil paint and linseed oil, in a nice way. We studied western art movements like Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and of course, the local Nanyang style — but we often sneered at it as a mere imitation of Western art.
Despite this cultural and intellectual familiarity, at the back of our minds, we knew that the origins of oil painting are far removed from our local context. The public housing blocks of Ang Mo Kio will always be closer to us than the haystacks of rural France. We couldn’t go to a local museum and see a Matisse or a Raphael. My knowledge of these artists mainly came from black-and-white reproductions in photocopied art history textbooks or the better coloured prints in the school library’s art section.
National Gallery Singapore: No Rembrandts and Cezannes to be found here
Get woke, bro!
Of course, I got a bit more “woke” as I grew older. It’s just a matter of learning and increased awareness. I didn’t study art abroad (long story short: parents no money); I pursued Southeast Asian Studies at a Singapore university from 2015 to 2019, which opened my eyes to the region’s art that I had previously overlooked.
As part of my degree, I had to study a Southeast Asian language, Bahasa Melayu in my case, which turned out to be one of the most eye-opening aspects of my education. Learning the language forced me to see both Singapore and its entanglements with the region in a very different light. It wasn’t just about grammar and vocabulary, it was about a different rhythm of thought, different cultural assumptions, and a history and geography that Singapore is deeply tied to, even if we often pretend otherwise. Language study broke the illusion of Singapore as a self-contained, exceptional bubble in Southeast Asia.
S. Sudjojono, Maka Lahirlah Angkatan ’66 (1966) © getlost.id
The National Gallery Singapore was opened in 2015, and over time, works of some of the artists that I didn’t know about, like Affandi and S. Sudjojono, became pieces that I would revisit time and time again whenever I returned to the museum. These artists took a visual language from their coloniser and redefined it for themselves.
The mind of the westernised boy that placed the west on a pedestal slowly began to see that these weren’t just cheap imitations of the “real deal” in the west. Instead, these works emerged from original, independent thought deeply rooted in this region. These creations represent genuine reconfigurations of diverse cultural influences, including the west, expressed through paint on canvas at pivotal moments in local history.
Riding a motorboat through the mangrove swamps of Patani, Thailand in 2019
As this westernised boy began to deepen his understanding of Southeast Asia, new doors opened, and once-obscure cultural meanings in these artworks gradually became clear to me.
Singaporeans tend to be culturally estranged from the region, largely due to language and cultural barriers. Many remain distant and unaware about the neighbouring cultures, often more familiar with Europe, America and East Asia (Japan and S. Korea). I don’t hold this against them; Lee Kuan Yew once referred to Singapore as a “shining beacon in a sea of darkness”. As a majority ethnic Chinese country, Singaporeans aren’t exactly encouraged to connect with our predominantly “pribumi” neighbours, a situation rooted in historical issues far too complex for this piece of writing.
Personally, I feel like a “sesat” Singaporean. Growing up with western culture dominating my imagination, I found myself questioning that hegemonic narrative and exploring my own cultural backyard, including its artistic landscape. This isn’t what the Singaporean state encourages; Singaporeans are expected to move beyond the “sea of darkness” of the Third World rather than linger in it. In that sense, I am indeed “sesat”, even to the point of relocating to KL.
However, I remain conscious that much of my cultural and artistic foundation is rooted in the distant West. Yet humans grow, evolve, and at each stage of life, new influences shape our minds and identities.
I remember when I was around 19 or 20, during a phase of exploring local heritage, I told my mum that I thought Singapore’s hawker food culture would eventually die out. After all, it seemed like all younger Singaporeans cared about was McDonald’s and boba tea. She brushed it off and said, “Tastes change as you grow older.” And she was right. Just like our palate, our perspectives shift with time.
I’ve reached a juncture where I don’t really see the need to elevate one culture above another; dismissing anything western in a postcolonial angst also feels somewhat childish. Sudjojono inspires me as much as Van Gogh does in many respects. Jogja feels as exciting as Paris as artistic cities.
The way that culture, influence and history come together isn’t linear. It’s more like a tangled ball of string: many threads woven together, overlapping, looping back, crossing over each other in ways that defy the tidy timelines I was once taught in art history classes. That overly simplistic, western-centric narrative of progression from European Renaissance to Modernism left no room for the simultaneity and complexity I now see and live — especially in a region like Southeast Asia.
Today, Jogja stands just as vital as Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo as a cultural node, and I’m glad to be part of this quiet shift in perception, no longer captive to the gravitational pull of “first world” hegemony. I feel freer to chart a more entangled, multipolar course, one that better reflects the world as it actually is.