Between artists and their work there exists a space where emotions and expressions transpire, like leaves giving off water vapor through the stomata. Yet, for many artists, such space ends when the artworks depart from the art-making process. For the Hong Kong-based artist Trevor Yeung the bonding between the artist and artworks never ends, as long as the plants in many of his works continue to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen through photosynthesis. 

Yeung gives the impression of being not only an artist but a lover of living things. And since graduating from Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Arts in 2010 he has developed a unique practice incorporating botanic and aquatic elements into site-specific installations. He is known for his specimen-like and biomimetic collages of found objects and spatial presentations that consist of actual aquariums teeming with fish and plants.

Yeung’s works have grown in proportion with the increasingly high-profile occasions he has been granted. The installation Mr. Cuddles Under the Eave (2021) of money trees (pachira aquatica) suspended in air featured prominently at Art Basel Hong Kong in the Encounters sector in 2023. As one of the six nominees of the Sigg Prize 2023, Yeung presented previous works at the prize exhibition organized by M+ in Hong Kong. In September 2023 Yeung opened the solo exhibition “Soft Ground” at Gasworks in London in which he explored the cruising culture of an infamous north London park. Yeung spoke to ArtAsiaPacific about his works and practice ahead of his representation of Hong Kong at the 60th Venice Biennale in April titled “Courtyard of Attachments,” as well as the second iteration of “Soft Ground,” which opens at the nonprofit Para Site in mid-March with the title “Soft Breath.”