Ian Woo (b. 1967; Singapore) is an artist influenced by perceptual abstraction and the sound structures of music improvisation. His work is characterised by biomorphic formations affecting spatial change rendered through drawing or painting. His art does not adhere to a specific cultural identity, instead, Woo’s position to image making follows an act of shifting and dividing between subject and non-subject matter, distancing away from memory while concurrently recovering an autobiographical presence.

Woo studied painting at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury (UK) in 1994. He received a Masters in European Fine Art at the Winchester School of Art (Spain and UK) in 1995 and a research practice DFA with RMIT University (Australia) in 2006.

In 1999, Woo was the recipient of the UOB Painting of the Year award, Singapore in the Abstract category. He was also the Juror’s Choice for two consecutive years in South East Asia’s Philip Morris Award in 1999 and 2000. His Doctorate research was based on the ability of abstract painting to express notions of a continuous presence.

Woo’s first solo exhibition Mental Images was held at the LASALLE Gallery in Singapore in 2000. Solo exhibitions include Haven’t Seen You Lately, Jendela (Visual Arts Space), The Esplanade, Singapore (2024); Joy of a preverbal dispenser, FOST Gallery, Singapore (2020); Emotional Things, The Esplanade Tunnel, Singapore (2018);  Falling Off Plastic Chairs, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Singapore (2015); and Ian Woo: A Review 1995 – 2011, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Singapore (2011). Selected recent group exhibitions include Siapa Nama Kamu, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore (2015); After Utopia, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2015); The Origin of Beauty: Dramatic Nostalgia, Busan Museum of Art, Korea (2014); and Market Forces – Erasure: From Conceptualism To Abstraction, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong (2014).

His works are in the collection of major institutions such as ABN AMRO, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, Singapore Art Museum, The Istana Singapore, The National Gallery Singapore, Suzhou Center, UBS and the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, USA.

Woo’s paintings were featured in the Artforum issue of summer 2015 and the publication Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes, a publication by Phaidon in 2013.

Woo lives and works in Singapore.

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