About the Artwork
These prints are assembled with hundreds of marks made while listening to four compositions: Solo Violin by J.S. Bach, Messiaen’s Theme and Variations for Violin and Piano, and selections from Beethoven’s sublime Piano Sonata in E Major Op. 109. Each image is a combination of charcoal marks made as a reaction to the escalation and variations in notes, mathematical in nature, and when placed together brings forth a visual composition which visualises the dramatic atmosphere of the scores. Variations and Variables was presented at a concert with Singaporean pianist Abigail Sin and violinist Loh Jun Hong at the NUS Festival for the Arts 2019.

About the Artist
Dr. Yanyun Chen (b. 1986, Singapore) is a visual artist. She runs a drawing, animation and installation practice, and her works delve into the aesthetic, cultural and technological inheritances on one’s body, unravelling fictional and philosophical notions of embodiment. Her recent works include Women in Rage, Stories of a woman and her dowry, and The scars that write us. She received the Prague International Indie Film Festival Q3 Best Animation Award (2020), ArtOutreach IMPART Visual Artist Award (2019), National Youth Film Awards Best Art Direction Award (2019), and Singapore Art Museum President’s Young Talents People’s Choice Award (2018). Her works have been exhibited internationally, including Buenos Aires, Korea, Macau, Belarus, The Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Chen graduated from the European Graduate School Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought PhD programme in 2018. She lectures at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, founded illustration and animation studio Piplatchka, and publishing house Delere Press LLP.

Images courtesy of the Artist