Norm Yip

Norm's paintings tend to begin in turbulence and settle somewhere quieter. They move between abstract expressionism and a calmer, more geometric stillness, and they record an inner state more than an outside scene. Even as his subjects have darkened through loss and grief, he remains committed to beauty.

He left a career in architecture in 1999, needing, he says, to work with his hands. He paints in acrylic and pastel pencil, building dense, gestural layers, though his recent Elemental series has opened out into something more spacious and geometric, drawn from a return to the Canadian prairies and a first sight of the northern lights.

He studied at the University of Saskatchewan and trained as an architect in Toronto, co-founded the Meli-Melo Artists Alliance in Hong Kong in 1999, and has exhibited in Hong Kong, New York, Bangkok and Zurich.

He divides his time between Saskatchewan and Hong Kong.

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