FIONA YEH
Location:
Taiwan
ARTIST BIO
Fiona Yeh is a Taiwan-based contemporary artist whose figurative practice navigates the psychological terrain between vulnerability and strength. Working primarily with oil, oil pastels, and mixed media, she constructs emotionally charged visual narratives in which lions, women, and imagined landscapes function as symbolic extensions of the inner self.
The lion, a recurring and defining motif in her work, transcends conventional representations of power or dominance. In Yeh’s visual language, it embodies endurance, dignity, and quiet resilience—a presence that persists without spectacle. Her restrained use of black and monochromatic tonalities intensifies the emotional gravity of her compositions, transforming darkness into a space of introspection and inner strength.
Her award-winning works include Lion-12 and Lion BW-66, both recipients of First Place at the 2024 Kyla Illustration Artist Award (Germany), and Lion-37: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, which received Second Place at the 2025 Art Collectors Choice Awards (USA). Other notable works—such as Dream, Lion-9, Lion-18, Lion-8, SL-1, Lion-40, and Teasing the King-1—have been featured in international juried exhibitions and published in VISUAL ART JOURNAL Magazine and SFUMATO ART CREATIVES Magazine (USA, 2025).
Yeh’s work has also received finalist and special merit recognition across Germany, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, including the Bronze Prize at the 2025 London Contemporary Art – Real Illusions exhibition. Her practice continues to expand internationally, positioned at the intersection of figurative storytelling, symbolic expression, and emotional depth.
Through her art, Fiona Yeh articulates a singular proposition:
Resilience does not announce itself—it endures.
ARTIST STATEMENT
People often ask me:
“Why black?”
“Why lions?”
To paint only in black — to live within its singular depth —
is both a profound challenge and a burning passion.
Black demands honesty; it reveals without distraction.
Through it, emotion and spirit rise, unguarded and pure.
I coexist with black because within it,
I can dive faster and deeper into the painting — into emotion itself.
The very act of limitation opens new senses:
when color falls silent, feeling begins to speak.
Black, in its quiet vastness, exposes truth —
for humans are too easily deceived by the glitter of appearances.
My use of black was born naturally from my own need to express —
not from influence, but from instinct.
Only later did I discover Pierre Soulages’ Outrenoir,
and found that his concept resonated with my own inner language.
We walk on different paths, yet share the same vibration —
that black is not the absence of light,
but the space where light and emotion are reborn.
The lions I paint are born from this darkness.
They are not rulers, but guardians of light —
protecting the wounded, the fearful, and the forgotten.
Through their gaze, I speak of courage and rebirth.
Through their presence, I rediscover the grace of healing.
In Outrenoir, I find not influence, but reflection —
a mirror that echoes my own journey through the night,
learning to love again through the gentleness of black.
