Yap Chee Keng convey his thoughts, emotions and view of art via lines. As a creator with backgrounds in both architecture and art, he uses impressions of chalk lines by placing layers of lines with the layout of threads to build colourful impressions, and to convey multiple emotional senses, such as tactful softness, toughness, honesty, steadiness, light buoyancy, smooth flow and various visible and invisible qualities.

The artist abandoned the traditional paintbrush, and instead, has chosen other tools as a way to represent his thread of thought, and this unconventionality is often a point to focus on whilst viewing his artworks. Yap uses “carpenter ink markers” on the canvas instead of paintbrushes, creating a deep image of “overlapping lines”. These series of lines are placed in a limited area, overlapping peacefully and rigorously with various kinds of crosses.

This skill of thorough thought in how to lay the lines is rather fascinating. It began from Yap’s mixing of original colours with the pink colour of the“carpenter ink markers”; these are found all over the canvas, including along its four sides. His colourful imagery is formed by lines, thus, with images spreading through the whole artwork, the entire piece appears to be united and yet overwhelmed by the lines.

Undoubtedly, the strong visual sensation was led by an atmosphere of drawing to create a sensation of walking in a maze for the viewer. Yap created “Overlapping Lines” to discuss the abstract nature of lines themselves. It retains a tension of uncertainty, as well as allowing the painting to display charm of its own accord. Yap’s creations are like the mental outcomes following meditation, focusing on the expression of the practice and the track of self-idealism.

The creator cares about the circulation of life via the flow of time; he uses lines as a medium to convey the process of time on repeated labouring, and his work forms as an image with balanced lines. He also uses traditional “carpenter ink markers” in modern painting. Vertical lines represent time, space, and colourful dreams. Yap repeatedly overlapped coloured lines on his canvas, and these “carpenter ink markers” connected his teenage memories and the existence of his physicality, thus, developing a unique visual perception, leading us into the beauty of a kaleidoscope world.