Yang-En Hume
After The Body, 2026, acrylic and oil on unstretched canvas, embroidery thread, 235 x 145 cm, £4,000
About this work:
‘After The Body’ explores family history through material absence. The painting is an attempt to create a material language that reflects my experience of growing up in an immigrant family, where my relationship to home was a continual negotiation. Based on a family photograph of my ancestors, the figures have been cut away, leaving their presence to be felt through their absence. Floral motifs, informed by Singaporean batik, surround the voids, weaving together family history and cultural inheritance.
The cutting, stitching, and repair of the canvas create an unstable, fractured surface that evokes the threshold spaces of migration, where identity is continually shaped through cultural collision and inherited memory. The unstretched canvas retains the softness and drape of cloth, bringing the work closer to textile traditions and reflecting my broader interest in craft, repair, and the ways materials can carry memory.
About the Artist:
Yang-En Hume is an Australian artist with Singaporean heritage, based in London. She graduated with distinction from the MFA programme at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 2026, where she was awarded the Betty Malcolm Prize, the Sarabande Emerging Artist Fund and the Reid Trust Grant, and was shortlisted for the Adrian Carruthers Acme Award and the Dolbey Travel Prize. She previously graduated with First Class Honours from the National Art School in Australia, where she was awarded the Academic Achievement Award and the National Art School residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Hume has been longlisted for the Ivan Juritz Prize and has received A–N and CuratorSpace bursaries, funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, and a grant from The Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Recent exhibitions include Inside/Outside at the Migration Museum, MK Open at Milton Keynes Gallery, and Bring Your Light at The Nunnery Gallery. She was selected for the No Break in Summer Residency at Mandy Zhang Art, which she is undertaking in August 2026.