[title]
2020 has been tough. However, many Singaporeans have found the silver lining in these turbulent times. With the additional free time from staying at home and not being able to travel, many have found themselves launching side hustles, volunteering with various organisations, and even picking up new skills. For Yale-NUS College student and part-time artist Yanni Chia, it's refining his skills in creating dreamy, surrealist collages.
Looking at his Instagram (@yawnyvisuals), we wouldn't blame you if you thought that Yanni has been doing this for a long time. But he reveals that he's only been creating these collages for six months, after being inspired by works from fellow artists he's seen on the social media platform. There's no particular theme in his works, though, he's still in the experimentation phase of his practice. "I don’t speak to a particular topic. Sometimes I feel like creating something that just looks nice. Other days, I feel like there’s something I want to communicate how I can visualise that message into a collage," he says.
At times like these where scrolling through your social media feeds can be rather daunting, Yanni's colourful, out-of-the-world images help you escape just for a little while. “On one hand, I do recognise that there is a possibility that my works can bring my audience to a different place; but there’s also the possibility of confronting certain issues. It depends on who’s looking at it and what they think," Yanni says. "On the surface, it may appear that you can use it as a form of escapism. But there’s also the possibility of reconciliation, of overcoming your problems. I find this duality very interesting.
While he's worked on commissioned pieces with brands and local musicians such as rapper Subhas, he submitted his first work for a big-scale exhibition as part of National Gallery Singapore's Open Call. Alongside with works by 59 other regional artists, his work was selected to form part of a rotating projection on the Gallery's central veiled canopy to commemorate Singapore's 55th year of independence. Called Structural Anxieties, it was a response to Wee Kong Chai's Working Class Family and featured a scene we're all too familiar with – colourful HDB blocks. The piece was in response to the multiplicity of anxieties faced by him and his fellow graduating students about to enter the workforce after completing their education.
“What struck out to me in the original work was the claustrophobia it evokes; there were so many people at the traditional street-side store. I paralleled that with the anxieties that students like myself would face in the future when we have to get a job, house, competing with so many other people. That was very interesting to explore," he says.
Read more:
Meet the artist who reimagines classical figures into modern-day Singapore
National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum come together for two new shows
Local Vocal: fresh new music from Singapore this week