Firsts

Andy Yang (b. 1973, Malaysia) is a visual artist based in Singapore. Andy received his art education from the renowned Malaysian Institute of Art in Kuala Lumpur and graduated in 1994. Thereafter, Andy enjoyed a successful career as an illustrator. In the mid-2000s, a trip abroad took him vis-à-vis artworks by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso. The profound impression left on him by these experiences led him to broaden the horizons of his creativity and to explore visual artistic languages. Since then Andy has been participating in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at The Substation Gallery (2010), Emotions at Instinc Gallery (2011), Abstract innovations at One East Asia Gallery (2013), Existential Passages at K+ Scott’s Square (2016), and The Many Glimpses of Drama at Art Forum Gallery (2017). Early on, Andy became fascinated by the abstract form, and by the flamboyancy of the colour gold. It was as if the power of the equatorial sun had landed and scattered on his canvases bringing to life the other colours, as in Flashbacks (2011). Furthermore, Andy considered the abstract more suitable to respond to his longstanding passion for music. The exploration into the myriads of possibilities between visual art and music led him to the creation of works under musical stimuli, and also in collaboration with, amongst others, local indie band The Observatory. In Anitya 1 (2011) the artist exposes the process of his art making in full cycle, from creation to destruction, and provides the compelling visual focal point to the music played live by The Observatory, at the Earl Lu Gallery of the Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore. And again, in the collaborative Spooky Action (at a Distance) presented for ArtScience Late in 2015 at the ArtScience Museum Singapore, Andy’s music and installation converge and blend in the impromptu performance by Strangeweather Movement Group. Another distinctive character of the artist’s art making process is the way he applies the carefully selected colours. Andy does not proceed deliberately and in full control. Instead, he uses air blown from various implements to allow the colours to be dispersed in a way that combines harmoniously the antithetical forces of control and fortuity: space, materials, implements become co-creators alongside the artist, as in Breaking Barriers Of The Unknown (2014). In recent years, Andy, grown confident in his familiar approach, and in unconscious pursuit of fresher challenges, has begun exploring a new direction: his field of vision embraces a wider and more balanced perspective. In his artwork for Chok Kerong’s album Tales They Told Me (2017), Andy uses ink and acrylics on paper: emptiness and silence play as much a part as the asemic writing, notes and pentagram’s lines pirouetting and swaying in the energetic composition. In Just Another Evening (2017), the indelible memory of a sunset is distilled, decomposed in its nuanced and essential elements, and conveyed on paper with a composed, measured, and a confident maturity. "Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential." Wassily Kandinsky View all posts by andyyangsookit