In search of the truth
By Sean Wang

At Yeo Tze Yang’s solo exhibition ‘TRUTH BE TOLD: Recent thotz abt painting ppl' ' at FOST Gallery, I am one of many people present at his exhibition walkthrough. Tze Yang explains the niggling feelings of self-doubt, the snarky comments by collectors at gallery openings and his ruminations on the artistic process that mark the walls. He also shares personal anecdotes and explains his unique spin on Social Realism. One thing is clear: he is not depicting things as they are; he is depicting things as he sees them. This means taking references from stock photos and splicing real and imagined compositions. Through this process of combining both careful observation and artistic discretion, he manages to tap at a deeper truth — the immaterial aspects of being a person.

I crane my neck as Tze Yang gestures towards the head jamb of the doorway. The words ‘The “Gallery” kind of artist’ are stretched across the angular edges. This is no ordinary gallery setting. With a mynah resting on the lines of a wall and paintings laid flat on the floor, a distinct playfulness transforms the space into an organic exhibition of “thotz”. Scribbled musings wrap themselves around alcoves and snake around jutting corners. Sketches torn out of notebooks are pasted next to large oil paintings, and even the paintings themselves come in segmented canvases and uncommon shapes.

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘The Writing On The Ground (CS, I ♡ Xinhui)’, 2022, oil on canvas, 46 x 92cm. Images courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Walking Back To Office After Lunch’, 2021, oil on canvas, 183 cm x 92 cm (diptych). Images courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

One of the most interesting pieces in his exhibition is ‘Walking Back To Office After Lunch’. The lower half of the diptych is mounted at an angle, forcefully highlighting the contrast between the first and second canvases. While the paintings may appear to be one singular image, disparities in the colour of the pants, the uneven lines of the pavement, and the numerous misalignments between feet and people suggest that something is not quite right. They are realistic but manufactured. Here, the subject that takes the spotlight is Tze Yang’s artistic dexterity. His process of photographing and photoshopping subjects is wonderfully documented in the exhibition’s accompanying autobiographical essay. However, what particularly interests me is the way this process, freed from socio-political and art history considerations, represents yet another aspect of the universal human experience with which he is concerned.

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Roast’, 2020, watercolour, marker, pen, ink and highlighter on paper, 21 x 29.7cm. Images courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Man In A Shirt With Patterns’, 2021, oil on canvas, 152 x 122cm. Image courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

Tze Yang’s paintings and sketches feel familiar. This goes beyond depicting everyday local scenes like the kopitiam in ‘Roast’. His paintings may seem more realistic than his sketches but he shares how he exaggerates the smoke billowing out of the burnt-out office worker in ‘An Investment Banker’ and stretches the figures in ‘Man In A Shirt With Patterns’ for dramatic effect. These “distortions” of the truth capture how we remember things. I see them as manifestations of the human instinct to amplify and alter visual characteristics when we process an image or memory. When Tze Yang speaks about using his creative liberty to “fill in” the faces obscured by surgical masks, I think of the recent discussions around “mask fishing”. What we see, and what we think we see, are not always as close to reality as we would like to believe. All this is to say: maybe Tze Yang’s work feels familiar because it emphasises feeling over accuracy, much like our own malleable memories. Perhaps he strikes at something more innate to the way we view our world. There is an honesty to his figurative painting that cannot be captured by other art forms like photography or photorealism.

“What we see, and what we think we see, are not always as close to reality as we would like to believe. All this is to say: maybe Tze Yang’s work feels familiar because it emphasises feeling over accuracy, much like our own malleable memories.”

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘An Investment Banker’, 2022, oil on canvas, 226.8 x 122 cm (triptych). Image courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

While his work may not fall under the category of photorealism, Tze Yang pays close attention to detail. Across the gallery, a couple leans against one another, each person using their mobile phones distractedly in ‘Lovers On The Train’. By altering his reference photo’s light exposure in photoshop, he carefully recreates the fluorescent lighting found in Singaporean trains. In the reflection, the tiny words on the phone screen add another heart-warming narrative: “I’m otw home. eat alr?”. Even as he pokes fun at cliché expressions of love in the painting’s high-strung title and the cheesy Chinese quote he paints over, he still draws our attention to the romance found in quotidian routines. I think of late-night MRT rides I have taken: the empty carriages, the sticky-smooth candy red seats, the handles jostling silently like a tassel of mute mouths. I find a bit of myself and my memories in his work.

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Lovers On The Train’, 2021, oil on canvas, 152 x 122cm. Images courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery.

Something else that catches my attention is his signature. For a person fluent in English, Chinese and Bahasa Melayu, why sign paintings in Chinese? Tze Yang points out that it is a mix of simplified and traditional Chinese. He relays that he was brought up writing his name in traditional Chinese but later had to switch to simplified Chinese in school because he was told the former was “wrong”. Reincorporating traditional Chinese into his signature is a reclamation of heritage but the chimeric combination is also because of the linework’s harmonious symmetry. This balance between aesthetic awareness and authentic connection is, so to speak, signature of Tze Yang.

At the end of our conversation, I ask him about his lack of formal art training. What could be a touchy subject for some does not faze Tze Yang. He proudly pronounces that his path is unconventional; his degree in Southeast Asian Studies brought him into contact with Thai artists and made him fluent in Bahasa Melayu. Furthermore, his independent artistic pursuits from a young age exposed him to the art world from a commercial perspective early on. Most importantly, he brings my attention to the words “但够透明，够真心”. Loosely translated, it means “but transparent enough, sincere enough”. In this “Gallery” we have walked through, his truth resonates with our own.