In the Flesh – Yeoh Choo Kuan

Its Just One of Those Days
Oil and Lacquer on canvas
90x75cm

Yeoh Choo Kuan returns to exhibiting in his home ground, following two recent exhibitions at the KIAF, Seoul, Korea and Art Taipei 2014.

RK Fine Art presents In the Flesh – a solo exhibition by Yeoh, an abstract expressionist who humanised canvases by exploring the material qualities of paint allegorically interpreted as skins and flesh.

His works highlight the physical gestures and processes involved in which quick scrapings of the paintings’ surfaces result in the fragile skins of paint to flake or peel, thus revealing the colours of the previous layers.

He considers the painted canvas as a simplified human form and it becomes a “surrogate person” that is nothing more than a piece of “flesh”, emotionless. As an imagined “living thing”, it suffers, and through acts of degradation, the naked skin is tormented by slicing lines, scrapings and peelings, thus instigating the “meat” below to flower forth as beautiful and luscious accumulation of colours.

With the scraping of the paint surface, layers and peelings created the illusion of shedding skin –  a unique approach and a departure from his previous use of charcoal and oil.

Formerly a finalist in the 2010 and 2011 editions of the VAA Starhill Gallery Arts Award and also a finalist of the 2011 Malaysian Emerging Artist Award (MEAA2011), Choo Kuan’s works have evolved from figurative styles, to monotone representations, to the abstract expressionism.

Exhibition details:

Dec 1 – 14, 2014

Richard Koh Fine Art
Lot No. 2F-3, Level 2, Bangsar Village II,
Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru,
59100 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
T: +60 (03) 2283 3677
F: +60 (03) 2283 4677