Jewelle Yeung: Poetry on canvas

The artist in Jewelle Yeung affords her the ease to see the world in both its complexity and simplicity. On her canvas, she marries both the familiar and unfamiliar, the mundane becomes meaningful, joy and sorrow are merged and eventually come together to fulfill life.

Dreams and realities are elements that are woven tightly in her artworks, like a couple in love who will never let go of each other no matter the odds, however life presents them its strengths and flaws. At times, the elements in her oil paintings tend to become territorial only to let go of themselves to a vast space, like the birds in flight in Jewelle’s Melee, a 160-cm. x 110-cm. oil painting that depicts struggle and confusion, which are also fundamental in finding wholeness of the self. Jewelle has an astute ability to unite strong forces of peace and chaos on her canvas, mask them in vibrant colors to illustrate that no matter the challenges, life is still worth it.

“My artworks have taught me that mistakes are essential and beautiful at the same time. They can lead you from one place to another, or they can turn out to be better than what you planned in the first place,” says Jewelle, 31, whose all-sold-out 15 oil paintings are on exhibit until Oct. 12 at the 856 G Gallery in Cebu City. 

Jewelle is of Chinese and Filipino descent so her formative years were spent shuttling  between Hong Kong (the city of origin of her father Carlos Yeung) and Cebu (the province of her mother Mariquita Salimbangon-Yeung). Her parents are into real estate development in Cebu and the jewelry business in Hong Kong. Jewelle lounges happily at the thought that her parents have never held her back in pursuing her own passions and interests.

“I’m very lucky to have my parents. They are the embodiment of a long list of aspirations that I have — passionate, hardworking, genuine, ambitious, generous, full of love…the list goes on. They have never held me back, and have always supported whatever I felt passionate about,” says Jewelle.

“I’ve always had an interest in art starting from an early age. However, it wasn’t until I moved to the UK when I was 12, that I started practicing it,” says Jewelle. She moved to London in 2001 and finished a Bachelor of Fashion Design and Technology degree at the University of the Arts. In 2006, she graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art School with a master’s degree in Fine Art with specialization in oil painting.

Shortly after finishing her studies, she was “head hunted by the fashion house of Hussein Chalayan, and Puma Black Label,” where she played a key role in print design for their lines.

But the artist in her yearned for paints and brushes. She continued her dalliances with her canvases and returned to her home bases in Asia to pursue her passion in painting. She has since then exhibited in galleries in New York and Hong Kong. After her exhibit at 856 G Gallery, she also has a few projects lined up including a show at Hotel Alicia in Cebu and hopefully a show in New York next year.

“I paint as a form of expression. These (artworks) normally spawn from my emotional state at the time. I am drawn to movement and how this connects with emotion, both constantly changing,” says Jewelle whose abstract works depict a fusion of expressionism and surrealism. “But I believe my style is constantly evolving,” adds Jewelle who, in the past, had also experimented with set design, art direction, interior design, fashion design and product design. She hopes to create pieces of sculpture one day.

Her Collision is almost a flamboyant display of her emotion on canvas, where two compelling forces of nature ram each other. The result is a movement so fluid you see emotions leaping out of the canvas.

The hustle and bustle of city life and the electrifying yet fleeting joy it brings to one are all, in an almost impasto rendition, represented in Jewelle’s artworks like Into the Deep, Into the Rabbit Hole and Smog.  

Jewelle’s animal series like Free Run and Legend of Reem is seemingly done with the imprimatur of Equus. The horses in her paintings gallop to a space they create with their own resolute will.

Her red thread series connotes connectedness. Her Red Thread and Connected 2012 clearly explain a Chinese proverb that says: “An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break.”

 “I am also almost always drawn to the natural pattern of things...the evolution of living things, their growth and decay,” she says.

Undeniably, Jewelle writes poetry on her canvases; instead of words, she uses colors, lines and strokes to communicate her feelings, her thoughts. 

(E-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)