Yin Yang One and Many

In 1987, at the Yin Yang Festival he co-founded, Gilles Massot presented Yin Yang One and Many. A two-panel work that explores the contrasts of his journey from Marseille to Singapore.

One panel shows a solitary male, partially nude, lightly outlined in acrylic strokes. The mood feels quiet. The second panel tells a different story: 12 smaller frames filled with simplified human forms and abstract symbols in black gouache, layered over a grid of collaged newspaper. The effect is lively, even chaotic. Stillness meets activity, solitude encounters the crowd. For Massot, meaning lives in “the space between things.” A fitting idea for someone who moves between French and Singaporean worlds. This early work embodies that cultural navigation and his lifelong curiosity about how meaning changes across borders, mediums and disciplines.

The Yin Yang Festival was a modest, five-day event of exhibitions and performances. Artists came together to explore the Chinese concept of yin and yang. It was experimental, collaborative—qualities that would resurface a year later when The Artists Village formed in Sembawang.