SHADES OF MEANING

Emerging Singaporean artist Jamie Tan’s prismatic works explore the powerful—and deeply personal—effects of colour.

If you’ve ever doubted colour’s ability to stir up powerful emotions, look no further than the recent firestorm that erupted when Pantone unveiled its 2025 Colour of the Year. Evocatively named “Mocha Mousse”, PANTONE 17-1230 is a warm, rich cocoa that somehow managed to split public opinion down the middle, with detractors calling it dull, or worse. Who knew brown could be so divisive?

None of this surprises Jamie Tan, a young Singaporean artist who has been obsessed with colour and its effects since his school days. Now represented by Art Porters, Tan, who earned his BA in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore in 2017, has explored his oeuvre in exhibitions across Malaysia and Singapore.

A Jamie Tan work typically features methodically positioned bands of colours in varied tones, creating an irresistible sense of movement. Some pieces are neatly ordered, with overlapping rectangles radiating off the canvas in progressively lighter or darker tones. Others, like a series inspired by different times of day, delve into such minute tonal variations that viewers might feel their eyesight is being tested. Then there are works that hint at controlled chaos. Picking Up the Pieces, an oil-on-linen creation, resembles a shattered colour wheel, challenging the conventional wisdom of this familiar tool.

“We were taught the colour wheel in school, along with all these rules about how we should apply colour. But I thought: no, I’m just going to use what I like and what happens, happens,” says Tan, whose artistic inspirations include the abstract artist Josef Albers, and the “repetitive, syncopated rhythms” of jazz music. These influences manifest in his almost mechanical work process, which often involves using painter’s tape to create uniform blocks and strips of colour.

“The colours and lines are positioned quite differently in every single work... There’s a joyfulness, playfulness, a feeling of dancing.”

— JAMIE TAN

Deeply reflective by nature, Tan is fascinated by how the perception of colour shifts with time and context. One of his most formative influences is David Batchelor’s Chromophobia, which argues that Western cultural thought harbours an innate fear of colour. “People didn’t like colour in the past because it symbolised something dangerous,” he explains. “There’s a perception that black and white represents truth, while colour doesn’t because it plays with your imagination and obscures reality.”

Tan is equally intrigued by colour’s ability to shapeshift in effect and meaning. “Red can feel threatening and frightening, but it can also be romantic. Blue connotes depression, yet it also evokes the vastness of the sea and sky,” says Tan, whose works have been acquired by the likes of Tiffany & Co and LVMH.

Tan uses painter’s tape to quickly block off areas to be painted in his colourful artworks.

Each colour is carefully chosen to create a particular mood and sense of movement.

His latest commission—a series of 26 unique works for Marina Bay Sands’ Paiza Collection, its most exclusive array of suites—pushed Tan outside his comfort zone. With a tight timeline, he swapped his beloved oils for fast-drying acrylics, a medium he has come to love. Each 1.4 square metre piece features Tan’s signature vibrant blocks of colour, inspired by the earth tones and colourful accents in the suites. Viewed from the side, the vividly coloured strips create an almost lenticular effect, appearing to push in and out of the canvas. “The colours and lines are positioned quite differently in every single work, creating a wavy feeling of movement unique to the room it’s located in,” Tan explains.

“They’re not bound,” he adds. “There’s a joyfulness, playfulness, a feeling of dancing.”

When asked about his favourite colour, Tan doesn’t hesitate: orange and red. Surprisingly, the cheerful hue of bright yellow makes him uncomfortable. “When I’m painting shades going from yellow to white, it becomes very difficult to navigate the tones in between. It feels a bit like I’m blind,” he admits.

Though he doesn’t have synaesthesia – a phenomenon where stimuli trigger additional sensory experiences, such as “tasting” sounds or “smelling” colours, Tan intriguingly associates people with specific colours. Even more curiously, he notes that a person’s “colour” doesn’t always align with the paintings they gravitate to in his exhibitions. But he sees no need to intervene.

“I don’t think that I should have to know the context to understand what an artist is trying to convey. People should be able to walk into my exhibitions and recognise colours they’ve seen at home or elsewhere in their lives,” says Tan.

“I want my art to be accessible to everyone, so that they’re free to create their own interpretations and memories. I want my works to make people feel free.”