We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Yam Chew Oh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Yam Chew below.

Alright, Yam Chew thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I make artworks and share my knowledge and experience as an educator and ever-student of art. For the former, I learn by playing, exploring, and experimenting—with an open mind, a making-up-for-lost-time hunger, and insights into what makes me happy. For the latter, I teach two courses about the everyday and creative process at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and counsel international students interested in higher education at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

Art-making is a sort of slow-burn; it takes time. If I could do it from the beginning again, I would actually slow it down—to think more, to write more, and to savor the process more.

What is most essential are not hard skills, which I learn through research or seeking advice, but curiosity and courage—to be always inquisitive and fearless of trying.

Time has been the biggest obstacle to going wider into other mediums and deeper into specific skills and craft, such as traditional drawing and sculpture, and ceramics.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Baltimore, Maryland, in the Northeast of the United States. I have a multifaceted art practice, including a full-time role as an international admission counselor at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), a faculty position at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where I now teach the courses The Everyday Artist and 9 Ways to Skin a Cat, and my personal work as an exhibiting artist.

As an artist, I have been making mostly sculptural objects and 3D collages using found and used material. This stems from growing up the son of a Singapore karung guni man (junk man), which deeply influenced my love for the humble, used, and discarded. I am interested in things and materials—their provenance, meaning, and how they can come together to form multi-dimensional images, to express thoughts, tell stories, and convey messages. A lot of my work concerns ideas of family, relationships, and states of mind and being.

I “returned” to the art world only in my early forties after an 18-year international communications career in government, public relations consultancy, healthcare, gaming, and oil and gas. I have always been creative as a child; I won my first art competition in primary (elementary) school with a watercolor still life of a yellow orchid and I was a member of the school’s Creative Club. In secondary (middle) school, I passed up the opportunity to attend an art immersion program out of fear that my grades in the main and “more important” subjects would suffer. It was not until more than three decades later, during a one-year sabbatical from oil company Shell, that I rediscovered the creative side of me that had been suppressed for years in favor of a well-trodden, practical path. A string of fortuitous events led me to the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Fine Art program at MICA, where I had a transformative experience and decided to give my high-paying – but stressful – corporate role that provided me with a comfortable life for the uncertainty of a new career in the arts, where I had to start all over again in my 40s. It turned out to be the best thing I have ever done for myelf.

Since graduating from MICA, I have been involved in the arts in many ways: I interned at a studio for autistic artists; tutored at MICA and SVA’s writing centers; went to New York for two years to obtain my master’s in fine art at SVA; returned to Baltimore to work as an exhibiting artist; did strategic communications for New York-based Asia Contemporary Art Week; took on a variety of part-time gigs, including as a teaching assistant at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, as a visiting artist at MICA, and as a faculty in SVA’s summer residency program. Currently, I travel across the globe and meet with students interested in a stellar education at MICA. My goal is to get them to think critically about higher education in art and design and their practice and development as artists and creatives—I hope to point them in the right direction and that they might get to experience what I did at MICA.

I wish I have more time to devote to the “making” side of my creative practice. There are things brewing in that department, so stay tuned!

I used to think that success was about gallery representation and sold-out solo shows. Over the years of working in the art world, that has changed—now, success is whether my work, both the things that I make and my role in international admissions, move people.

I love to collaborate and I am open to project proposals and commissions.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about being an artist or creative is the ability to share my perspective on issues and matters close to my heart and to elicit resonance, whether through the things I make or the students I talk to about their education and future in art and design.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

As a creative, I have two simple goals: To make compelling art that moves people and to share my knowledge and experience with the next generation of creatives through teaching and admission counseling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yamchewoh.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yamchewoh
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yamchewoh
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/yamchewoh

Image Credits

Main artist photo by Justin Tsucalas
All artwork photos by Yam Chew Oh