Live Leak presents Yeoh Choo Kuan’s exploration on the depiction of violence on canvas through painterly expression extending from his previous solo exhibition, In the Flesh (2014) and recent works. Working in the self-coined painting approach “Fleshing Abstraction”, the young Kuala Lumpur-based artist produces object-based paintings that display scarred tactile surfaces of peeled and coagulated paint that are framed within custom-made wooden box frames, referencing material and gestural abstractions as well as hinting at the tarnished and fragile human body. Each box frame, which is individually spray-painted with lacquer paint, serves as a container for the paint-strewn canvas and collects the debris of the delicate skins of paint scratched out from the painting’s surface. Each box also functions as a “stage” for the painting and provides an atmospheric element for the abstract images.
According to the artist, the work in the exhibition references recordings of violence and violent events from around the world that are found on video sharing websites on the Internet such as LiveLeak.com and explores the encounter and exposure of violence that occurs through mass media. The artist views the violent images and videos as being a concrete part of reality and savagery has become an essential ingredient in modern media and entertainment. Each painting is numerically titled, either referencing to the duration of the found video that served as reference for the specific painting, or the time of day in which the video was shared or made public. As a body of work and within Choo Kuan’s practice, Live Leak reveals the autonomy of violence as a relevant subject for examination through a painterly language and that the artist has consistently explored and expanded in the past few years.
