STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery

Coastal Preamble

Artist Profile

Working in the language of abstraction, Ian Woo (b. 1967, Singapore) is one of Singapore’s most influential contemporary painters. Influenced by forms of modernism, perceptual abstraction and the sound structures of music improvisation, the different traces in his works are the result of a range of processes used to negotiate the possibilities of spatial relationships within the pictorial plane. While his visual language ranges from the minimal to dynamic bursts of brushstrokes, his works often imply the memory of a suspended implosion.

Woo holds a Doctorate in Fine Art from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, a Master of Art in European Fine Art and Painting from the Winchester School of Art, UK and Spain, and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Hons) in Painting from the Kent Institute of Art and Design, UK. He is currently the Programme Leader (Master of Fine Arts) at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.

He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the UOB Painting of the Year award in the Abstract category, as well as the Juror’s Choice in South East Asia’s Philip Morris Award in 1999 and 2000. He has had several solo exhibitions including Emotional Things at Esplanade Tunnel Singapore (2018), The Difference Between Your Mountain and My Couch at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Japan (2014) and Ian Woo: A Review 1995 – 2011 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2011).