To understand the trajectory of Yeo Kaa, one must first understand the theater of her presentation. At this year’s Art Fair Philippines in Circuit Makati, her project exhibit is built around a single, uncompromising point of entry. To see her current state, we are forced to first walk through her past. Step inside Yeo, Kaa’s “OKKK, NEXT.”
Whether intentional or not, the exhibit layout is in a loop. On the curved side from which you enter is a set up reminiscent of a toy store, echoing the collectible shops of Greenhills. But instead of mass-market superhero figurines, the shelves hold a retrospective of Yeo Kaa’s career. Through 3D-printed sculptures and small canvasses, she has resurrected ideas from her street art roots and early works. Seeing these side by side is a museum-scale conceptual experience compressed into a designer toy display. It is a physical manifestation of her generation’s culture: where the struggle in silence, sexuality, and dismemberment are packaged with the same glossy finish as a limited-edition collectible.
Inverting Labubu
In recent years, the art toy world has been dominated by Kasing Lung’s Labubu. That character represents one side of a specific coin: creatures in happy environments whose eyes and mouths betray a hidden terror. Yeo Kaa is the opposite side of that same coin.
Her characters are almost always filled with a starry-eyed joy, even as they endure terrible things or expel negative energy from their bodies. It is a haunting juxtaposition. Where Labubu is terror hidden in happiness, Yeo Kaa is happiness maintained in spite of horror.
Life From The Corpse
In the center of the exhibit, the narrative moves from the commercial to the spiritual. A central resin sculpture features her avatar rising out of a corpse of herself. It is a coming of age. Instead of blood, an explosion of red flowers and fauna erupts from the body cavity. Out of this floral decay, a pure white version of the avatar emerges. It is a rebirth that acknowledges the necessity of the previous self’s destruction.
Refined Rage and Hope
On the far end of the room, we find her most recent canvases. In these works, the themes have shifted. The overtly sexual imagery of her earlier years has been replaced by more domestic, interior explorations. In Rage is Love, a red persona dances through flames. What was historically a negative power is presented here in an energetic, happy light.
Perhaps the most significant departure is a canvas portraying the avatar opening many multicolored doors, accompanied by explosions of light. It is a profoundly hopeful piece. Where pain and dismemberment served as the juxtaposition for her early works, this piece offers the total opposite: the characters are joyful, and for the first time, the settings are joyful too. The neon energy is still unfiltered, but the execution is more restful, suggesting a newfound peace.
Unraveling Over Time
The brilliance of this exhibit is the mandatory return journey. To leave the gallery, we must turn around and retrace our steps. We pass the floral rebirth again and exit through the toy store.
By forcing us to exit through the gift shop, Yeo Kaa creates a complete circle. We see her past, her transition, and her present on the way in, and then we are forced to reconcile that present with her history on the way out. It is a visceral, spatial capture of her journey. We see who she was, who she is becoming, and the light she is finding as she opens those new doors.
