“It’s not just what you paint but how you paint… it’s an expression of yourself as an artist, and it’s what makes the painting special because it’s yours,” said Isabel Yong, artist and Concordia student majoring in Honours Psychology and Painting and Drawing.
Yong has been drawing her whole life, but it wasn’t until she took a painting class back in 2020 that she decided to pursue art educationally and professionally. Since her only degree option after that class was a major in Painting and Drawing, she decided to go for it.
“I felt really honoured,” she said about her enrollment in the class. “All I wanted to do was paint in a studio with other people who are painting seriously because I’ve never gone to an art high school or anything.”
She contacted Professor Leopold Plotek, the head of the studio art department at the time, and he not only helped her get into her first art course at Concordia but continued to be a supportive figure in Yong’s artistic career.
“We’ve kept in touch. I still send him paintings, and he did an independent study with me [last summer],” she said. “So he’s helped me a lot through the years I’ve been here.”
Her background in clinical psychology accompanies her artistic self, helping her illustrate the struggles of opening up emotionally.
Yong moved a lot growing up and has a rich cultural background, making it hard for her to foster a sense of home. This is something she’s learned to live with throughout her life.
“I think identity and belonging as more central themes were more common [in my art] when I was younger in high school because I think it bothered me more,” she said.
Yong grew up in an East-Asian environment and attended high school in Singapore, where creative arts were always seen as a hobby. However, she recalled having a high school teacher who encouraged her in her artistic path.
“I hadn’t really painted at all before then. I thought I didn’t like painting because I didn’t like acrylic paint. So when I was introduced to oils, I was like, ‘Oh my god. I actually do like painting,” said Yong.
She explained that the characteristics of oil painting aligned with her drawing background best, especially the flexibility of oil paint when it comes to the drying time or being able to layer paint thinly.
“Personally, I found oils to be very intuitive in the sense that it acts exactly how I expect paint to act,” she said. “I think I realized that I’m the type of person that likes to take things quite slowly.”
She explained that since oil painting takes longer to dry than other paint, it allows her to pause and reflect on her painting. The pauses allow for new decisions and new opportunities to shine through.
“It’s a decision point that makes me access my intuition and my preferences, so whether that be different colours, different forms, those preferences happen every time I make a decision, every time I make a pause,” she said.
She believes in the importance of a creative outlet like painting and music because they help access hidden facets of oneself.
“You may consciously choose to make certain choices in your painting, but you always make certain choices unconsciously and nonverbally,” she said
She recalled a painting she did called Cold Feet, where the nude subject is in a crow position, back facing the audience. Halfway through the painting, Yong changed the colour scheme.
“I finished painting the bottom before I painted the hands and feet; I was like, ‘Oh s***, this is actually kind of interesting. What if I made the hands and feet a different colour?” she said.
This unconscious decision resulted in a painting that resonated with Yong because she interpreted it as being physically vulnerable but emotionally guarded.
“This resonates with how I feel — getting cold feet and also being physically exposed, physically vulnerable, physically nude, but safeguarded through not showing her face, not showing her identity,” she said.