Born in 1945, Anthony Poon was one of Singapore’s pioneering abstract artists. After graduating from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 1964, Poon continued his art studies at Bynam Shaw School of Art in London and Regional College of Art in Bradford. In 1973, Poon won the UOB Painting of the Year Competition and was bestowed the Cultural Medallion in 1991. In 2002, he won the Excellence Prize at the China International City Exhibition and Symposium in Beijing for his 2006 Olympics sculpture. He passed away at the age of 61 in 2006.‘Inverted Y’ is from Poon’s Shaped Canvas series and the Wave series created during the 1970s. During this period, Poon experimented with Colour Field painting and was interested in exploring the linearity and flatness of the pictorial plane. Within the inverted Y shape canvas, the basic square shape is replicated and rearranged into multiples of clearly defined and illusionary squares. This is achieved through an intelligent interplay of multiple lines and a monochromatic colour with two alternating values.
