I was born in Hong Kong in the ’60s and I spent my childhood living in an imaginary bubble. I didn’t fit with the other kids and spent most of my time alone, observing nature or daydreaming. When I was 18, my parents sent me away to Michigan, to study accounting. Instead of that, I explored my freedom for the first time, surrounded by people from different cultures. This freedom left a permanent mark on my art.
Later in the ’90s, I moved to Vancouver. I had an eclectic range of jobs in numerous fields until my mother’s cancer changed my perspective radically. After, I applied to Emily Carr University of Art and Design and started my academic art studies.
I discovered Yayoi Kusama, one of my major influences, as we share the same obsessive approach to art. I elaborately studied Wim Delvoye and the Chapman Brothers for their provocative artworks, and Max Ernst, for his playful and surreal vision of life. I started to construct my language, which combines various art forms from drawing and painting to photography.
I completed my studies in photography at the New York Film Academy as well as a photography workshop with Normal Magazine in Paris, where I mentored under Formento+Formento. I have recently been published in Vulkan Magazine, IRK Magazine website, and the Nakid Magazine website, I was also introduced in Lucy’s Magazine.
My work is about parallel realities. Some of these landscapes are purely fictional and represent what’s happening in my head whereas some are inspired by real-life and from my experiences. I prefer to think that I am the fetish master of my fantasy world, which is inhabited by absurd monsters and unique characters. My universe is kinky, weird, and playful. My audience might experience sudden shifts in the power structures between my characters as I enjoy transforming the prey into the predator.
Ink
My art is a love
affair/ love letter
to myself and sometimes
to the people, I work
with. It hurts, it cuts,
it’s euphoric,
addictive, it
disappoints, excites
and satisfies. It makes
emptiness more empty,
makes love more
precious and
impossible. Magical,
art-making is me, the
the only way to be and
to live, or I feel dead
inside. To sum up, do or die.
To view more of Yvette Tang’s work please visit their website.