The subject and theme of boats had been my utmost favourite throughout my years as an artist and I totally understood them well. In the beginning of my artistic journey, I used to be drawing and painting them in a more realistic way. However, since then, I had a lot of imageries and assemblages of boats in my mind and very familiar with them – shapes, sizes, colors, etc. Years later, I got bored with the mundane and monotony of such style, which later inspired me to find ways and challenge myself to breakthrough of my repetitive comfort zone. Through endless trials and errors, experimenting and researching, I tried using different methods and unique styles to present my artworks. During the creative process, I allow my flow of imagination, expression, impression and brushes to flow freely, without any restrictions or confinement, in order to let them evolve themselves. Juggling between abstract and realism, I managed to discover and realized the beauty of semi-abstract in my artworks. I was actually surprised and impressed with every successful outcome of my experimentation of my artworks. While I may not be able to ascertain the outcome of each experiment, I am still willing to continue the experimentation and exploring further new possibilities for my artworks. From there, I am glad and grateful to be able to present my latest artworks of the beauty of semi-abstract for the viewing pleasures of my audience.

“船”是我最喜欢的创作主题，对于它，我非常的了解。
从初期的“写实”画法开始，我脑海里已经是堆积了很多关于船的形态和形象。
但我厌倦了千遍一律，太过重复性的创作手法。
因此，我不断地尝试，希望可以透过不同的表现方式，呈现我的创作，展现我个人独特的风格。
在探索和寻觅的过程中，我任由画笔在“意象”与“想象”之间游走，
让作品穿梭于抽象与具象的关系之中，并展露半抽象的迷离之美。
对于这些新尝试，我成功地造就了很多的“惊喜”，虽然每一次的创作，都是一个不可预知的结果，但是，我却乐而不疲地探索着，寻觅着！
希望抽象之美，愉悦观众的眼睛！

‘Accumulate’ is one of my latest ‘Assemblage Series’. The inspiration behind this piece and my whole series originated from my life experiences from growing up in a fishing village and assimilating my life with them. I have gone through a tremendous amount of preparation works before production. Among them are collecting and taking lots and lots of pictures and photos related to assemblage or anything which is connected to grouping, hoarding or accumulation – either they are in an orderly or unorderly manner of arrangement and composition. To me, such ‘assemblage’ and accumulation interest me in a way that they are beautiful and unique in large amount or quantities. Thus from such scenarios, my inspirations, imaginations and creative juices started flowing and as a result, I managed to come out with this amazing series. Throughout the process, I had integrated the elements of cropping, combining, rearranging and overlapping to come out with the compositions. As for the painting process, I used wet-on-wet method to cover the base and background. Then, I used overlapping or glazing method and dry brush method to do the details. Besides that, I also add on tiny little lines to create rhythms and atmosphere for the painting hence expressing my personality and conversing my artistic language to my audience. Finally, I could not deny that I totally enjoyed the love and freedom of connecting the relationship between expressionism and impressionism – my heart and thoughts throughout the production process and able to present to you my semi-abstract pieces for your enjoyment.

《堆积系列》是我最新的创作。

这一系列的创作，灵感源自于我的生活周遭的环境。

创作之前，我收集了无数的照片，全部是有关于物品的“堆积”。

不论是井然有序的“堆积”；还是杂乱无章的“堆积”，

它们的整体造型，我都觉得非常独特和优美；是一种由“数量”堆积而形成的美。

这情景感动了我，也给予我很多创作的灵感和想象。

因此，我展开了“堆积”系列的创作。

作品中，我利用“分割”、“重组”以及“重叠”的艺术元素来处理构图。

也采用湿画法渲染了背景，处理好整体的色彩关系。接着用干或湿的重叠法进行

细节处理。当然在这过程中，我会加入一些微细的线条，横贯画面，营造气氛；强化艺术气息。

同时展现我个人独特的“艺术语言”。

在整个创作的过程中，我很享受，享受着安然自在、享受着“心象”和“意象”的相互交替的意念下，创造出了半抽象的作品！

Indefinite Irrelevance – A Brief Introduction

Throughout time, I had been relentlessly drawing, painting and researching. In fact, my interest in art had not subsided through time.

From the beginning, my artistic style, contents and watercolour skills have been constantly evolving – from traditional watercolour presentation to semi-abstract. To me, such evolution possess an immense meaning but it does not represent the end of my previous ‘Accumulate’ series. In fact, it is a continuity of my previous series’ main theme but in an evolved, improved version.

By giving it a breath of new life and meaning, I present to all my fellow audience my latest series entitled ‘Indefinite Irrelevance’. This new series is a continuation of my ‘Accumulate’ series, where the current and previous one have close connection in terms of content, methodology, presentation, storytelling which I truly believe that my audience could understand and relate to. From the name ‘Indefinite Irrelevance’ itself, I understand and comprehend on how some matters in our life are interrelated or somehow connected to each other. On a certain level, it is not only intimately connected and bonded to me, but also is an artistic creation of my own, which contain my spirit of creativity, artistic language and substance. From ‘Accumulate’ series to ‘Indefinite Irrelevance’, my art creation is constantly changing from time to time. However, no matter how much changes it goes through – colour, composition, conditions and circumstances, all these are not important. This is due to the fact that I truly understand that my passion and burning desire towards art will always remain unchanged. In addition, I always enjoy every creative process as it allows me to learn about my mistakes and face challenges courageously which will inadvertently create the beauty and charm of my artworks. The entire creative process and journey act as a driving force to motivate and encourage me to continue striving tirelessly to improve myself, skills and to move forward to the next level.

’Indefinite Irrelevance’ is a series where I pursue my insistence on making a change and creating something novel derived from my previous series. In my latest series, I have strengthen the elements of design, thus making my works stood out with a fresh new look yet maintaining the spirit and embodiment of my previous works.

Personally, I wish to change the perception and impression of the public towards sea vessels, especially boats. Through my artworks, I have diligently recreated, remodelled, rearranged and rebuilt a fresh new modern feel and rendition on these amazing sea vessels. From my depictions, I hope to awe my fellow audience from a different and contemporary aspect.

In this series, I have reduce the elements of texture but increase the elements of overlapping and form composition. By dealing with the combination of spaces and leaving white areas, I want my works to imply the philosophy of Chinese paintings. Besides that, I have also embedded the spirit of imagination, unimpeded and free strokes on my artworks to exhibit a sense of boldness and grandeur.

《绝非无关》–创作简介

这些时间，我一直在画，在专研，不停歇地。

绘画的兴趣行没有因为时间的流逝而减弱。

从传统的水彩画法表现，到今天的半抽象或抽象的呈现，我的创作风格、作品内容和技术能力都在不断地演变。对我而言‘演变‘有着深一层的意义，它并不表示之前的系列已经完全结束了，而恰恰是延续了前一系列的创作重点和趣点，再度升华为一个全新的系列，我赋予它新生命，让它展露新精神，呈现给大家。

因此，我为这个最新系列性创作，命名为《绝非无关》。

它是《堆积》系列的余温，它们之间有着某种亲密的牵连，是内容，或是技法，又或者是呈现和表达，相信观者一看，自有理解。

顾名思义，《绝非无关》似乎与某些事物有‘藕断丝连’之嫌，显然地，的确是！

因为，本质上，《绝非无关》与我是息息相关的！它不单是一个创作，也蕴聚着我的创作精神以及艺术涵养的展露。

从《堆积》创作到《绝非无关》，作品的风貌时而在转变，但不论如何改变；改变的状态又是什么，或者都是不重要，因为，我非常清楚和确定，唯一不变的，就是我依然热爱艺术，更是醉心于每一次的创作，也体悟了‘创’的挑战，和‘作‘的魅力。

‘创‘与’作‘两者之间蕴含着’催化‘的成分，催促着我继续努力不懈，精进技艺，激励着我昂首阔步！

杨觉昇。16.7.2015于荷风轩

【绝非无关】～求‘变’求‘新’所衍生出来的序列性作品。

新作品中，我加强了设计的元素，让画面可以显现出‘新颖’的感觉，但也还保留着前一系列的创作精髓。

我想藉由这个新系列，改变大众对于‘船’的既定印象，也希望透过我的诠释，

为作品，重新塑造一个充满‘现代感’的面貌，让观者惊讶～原来也可以用这样的方式来描绘船。

新的系列的作品中，画面少了繁杂的质感，却多了重叠的块面。

空间的配搭和 ‘留白’的处理，蕴涵着中国画的艺术哲学。再加上奔放和粗旷的笔触，作品可展露出豪迈之感。

In between the element of ‘visible’ and ‘hidden’, they can create not only a sense of distance but yet close, clear and lucid but yet indistinct, in addition to the multiple layers that co-exists truly inspired me to create these series.

I am very fond of these types of contents – the uniqueness yet artistic beauty of ‘Faintly Discernible’. The co-existence of various elements exude a very feeling towards me to start this creative series.

From the aspect of my creative process, it is undeniably that my creative process is strongly influenced by Chinese painting, especially in terms of composition, design and the utilisation of water and colours.

In composing my pieces, I made a strong emphasis on spacing especially on leaving white areas. I feel that through the integration of aesthetic psychology and artistic principles of ‘leaving white spaces’ could easily attract the attention and eyes of my fellow audience, thus elevating their senses of appreciation towards my works.

In fact, from the concept of ‘white is not emptiness’, the parts which are left empty or blank doesn’t mean they are empty, but yet they hid the unlimited possibilities of imagination. From the looks of emptiness but yet an existing feeling can influence and lead my spectators to enter the realm of reverie and fantasy. This is key tool for me to present my message and story to my observers.

Throughout the journey of my creation, I love utilising the elements of duality – hidden and present, leaving blank and fully densed, separation and grouping and other art elements to create my paintings – Faintly Discernible. I also utilise the wet on wet method, colour rendering and dry brush method to enable my works to exude numerous visual effects – from softness yet hard, clear and vibrant but yet blurry, bright but yet dark, static but yet active, realistic but yet abstract looking.

Last but not least, I truly hope that my creations can present my unique artistic language to all my raving fans of my works. I hope that they able to resonate with my message and objectives. These have been my driving force of my art journey throughout the years.

By JaysonYeoh.26th September 2017

Either you may still remember or have forgotten, the city we are residing in are constantly undergoing rapid development and changes. This has caused the residence that we used to live in is slowly diminishing, slowly becoming memories and lastly become just a speck of history.

Through the passage of time, as our city goes through rapid development, we may start to reminisce and miss the old towns, buildings, timeless antiques, relics and rusty signboards. They gradually get eroded by the torrents of time. From the nostalgic memories that were etched in our hearts – from the familiar landmarks, scenes of the good old days and the simple yet charming life, are now gradually replaced by concrete jungles.

Since then, these heritage charms and buildings are slowly curled up into the corner of the cities, gradually isolated and forgotten by its people. From the alleys that we used to grow up in to the time spent in our childhood playground, all these scenes are now faded, leaving just memories of the past generations and finally just a collective memory for our current society.

All these ‘untouchable and immovable cultural relics’ of our forefathers had totally diminished and forgotten. Gone are the days when we could hear the calling of street vendors, the sounds of old landscapes, seeing the red brick coloured roof tiles and the faded colours of cracked walls and beams.

Imagine residing in a city which has lost its soul, totally stripped bare from the sense of time, history and cultures of many past generations…nothing more but emptiness and the eeriness of philistinism. Is this the exact scenario that we want to see in our current lives?

As an artist, I felt deeply dejected by such scenarios. Therefore, I am very much compelled to strive with every ounce of energy I had left, to ‘record’ down every single remaining and surviving old buildings or monuments into my art works before they are totally ‘wiped out’.

I truly hoped that through my art works, our next generation are able to have to opportunity to witness the past glories of time, understand and appreciate more of our history and keep them alive for their future generations.

‘Liberty’ is my main masterpiece series for 2019, which is also the sequel to my previous two series ’Accumulate’ and ‘Faintly Discernible’.

I have adopted the abstract style as the main approach for this series which was beyond the ‘half-abstract’ style used in my previous works.

In this series, I focused more on shape and colour combination and made use of the constructs of ‘dots’, ‘lines’ and ‘mass’ to forge an artwork of seemingly limited but ‘limitless’ space, which also embedded the essence of ‘soft’ and ‘strong’.

On the essence of ‘strong’, it reveals the defines of ‘shape’; while the ‘soft’ reflects the ‘edges’, which extend to the ‘empty spaces’. Under such an interchange, I carefully designed the appearance in explicit and implicit manners, and a sharp colour contrast to enhance the overall visual tension of the artwork.

Besides the above mentioned elements of this creative art, ‘lines’ is also one of my ‘main weapons’ in this work. Therefore, it is not hard to spot them. Each of them are either fine or thick, straight or curved, some fast and some slow, of different appearance, across the picture, cutting through space, and even guided the viewers on how to perceive the picture, and finally capturing and retaining the attention. Therefore, this is the main reason why I used the ‘lines’; this is the more individualistic art language and approach which I have ever adopted out of all of my artworks.

Of course, I also emphasized on the beauty brought out of all of my abstract artworks. I believe that regardless of any abstract artworks, the artist needs to try their best to let the viewers find the work pleasing to their eyes but also to their hearts. Only through this way, the artwork can truly touch their hearts.