Born in 1936, Thomas Yeo graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1960. He then studied in Chelsea School of Art and Hammersmith College of Art and Architecture in London. Since then, Yeo has participated in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions and in 1984, he was awarded the Cultural Medallion. Green Symphony, which depicts a forest canopy, was commissioned by the Istana in 2000. The title suggests that Yeo is primarily concerned with the how the individual shades, tones and notes of colour interact and interplay with one another, coming together to form an entire forest, a ‘green symphony’. The work is composed along a strong vertical axis, where the bands of pale green that delineate each tree almost act like pathways that take the viewer through the forest top.
