09 Jun Kyle Yip | Hall of Fame
ABOUT
Born in Scarborough in 1988, Kyle Yip is an acclaimed Toronto-based artist celebrated for his hypersurrealist creations. Kyle Yip weaves a rich tapestry that unites visual art, electronic music, film, and haute couture fashion, celebrated globally for its intricate conception in his dreams. Yip’s ‘Dream Pieces’ act as dialogues between conscious and subconscious realms, blending individual and collective cultural histories. The interplay of symbols, particularly the American flag, delves into themes of nationalism, cultural symbolism, and personal versus collective identity.
Hall of Fame – The Interview
ARTE LAGUNA PRIZE EXPERIENCE
How would you describe your experience during the last edition of Arte Laguna Prize? How has this event influenced your career?
My experience participating in the 16th and 17th editions of the Arte Laguna Prize—held at the historic Arsenale Nord in Venice—was surreal, synchronistic, and spiritually consequential. It marked a moment where premonition and real life came together. Years before the invitation, a psychic medium of international repute, Marilyn Mazzotta, foresaw my presence there—not for accolades per se, but for the symbolic act of standing beside my work, as a kind of metaphysical confirmation.
This vision was echoed years later in an interview I gave for Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art Magazine: ORIGINAL 10, curated by Mohamed Benhadj, who happened to be a juror for that same Arte Laguna edition. After being selected as a finalist in the sculpture category, I managed to secure last-minute travel funding through the Canada Council for the Arts’ Travel Grant to International Presenters, which allowed me to return to Venice—my second visit, the first being a formative art history trip in my teens with MEI International Academy.
But this return was different. It was shaped by grief, emotional healing, and a kind of spiritual readiness, coming after the loss of my mother and uncertainty with my former partner about whether I was even stable enough to attend. Venice became not just a place of artistic recognition, but something deeper. In that suspended city, time felt lucid, and for a moment, my health, creativity, and spiritual centre felt like they snapped back into place. The people I met and the atmosphere of the experience still live inside my work.
YIP’S ART PRACTICE
How do you see the relationship between your artistic practice and psychology evolving over time?
The relationship between my practice and psychology has never been accidental—it has always been central. Even before I thought of myself as an artist, I absorbed the world through an emotional and subconscious lens. My earliest drawings and sounds came from a deep desire to understand my world. Over the past sixteen years, I’ve studied and explored different therapeutic paths—emotionally focused therapy, psychology, dream analysis, and parts work—often alongside art therapy. All of that shaped a way of working that blends the clinical with the intuitive. What started as an interest in how the unconscious shapes images and sounds has evolved into something more: a process where the dream-state acts like a generator, not just a mirror. My works aren’t interpretations of dreams—they are the dreams. They arrive in REM sleep, often fully formed, and I recreate them as precisely as possible. These pieces are part of a larger network: dream paintings, music, installations, fashion, film—all connected through repeating themes and symbols. I’m still mapping this inner world.
What was the turning point in your life that led you to where you are now?
The real shift happened in November 2017. That’s when I started receiving a series of highly detailed dreams: sculptures, garments, sound pieces, films—complete works with titles, dimensions, materials, even real venues. It was as if something broke open inside me. The volume of material was so overwhelming that I eventually had to ask for it to slow down—I literally prayed for the visions to ease because I couldn’t keep up.
This happened after a long period of depression and loss. Through therapy, ritual, meditation, and psychic work, I crossed what felt like a spiritual threshold. Interestingly, it was the same psychic who foresaw my Venice trip, who had earlier categorized me as a “surrealist.” I didn’t know what she meant at the time. Now it makes sense. Since then, I’ve documented hundreds of dreams and thousands of compositions. The ideas often arrive complete. My role is to translate them—each one feels like both a riddle and a message.
What are your current or future biggest projects? What was the craziest moment of your artistic career?
After the Arte Laguna Prize, I returned to Toronto and suffered a spinal disc injury. That set off a wave of other health issues—neurological, sleep-related, and physical. While recovering, I was selected for a residency at the Gladstone Hotel (July 1 to September 30). What’s uncanny is that my proposed piece came to me in a dream set inside the Gladstone itself. It’s the first time the location I dreamt of and the real-world venue have aligned. The project is a large-scale wall sculpture—dreamt in exact detail, right down to dimensions and layout. The Gladstone is helping me bring it to life in the exact space that the dream showed me. This feels less like an exhibition and more like a ritual coming full circle.
What was the wildest moment of your career?
It began when I arrived at the Arsenale Nord and opened the crate containing my neon sculpture. The upper-right vertex of the crescent moon—crafted from delicate glass—had shattered. Without that one segment, the entire piece couldn’t illuminate. It was the first time I had received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, and I felt the full weight of that responsibility. But it wasn’t just the sculpture that shattered—it felt like the dream had too. That piece had come to me fully formed in a dream, and in it I saw the embodiment of belief: in illumination, in arrival, in everything this moment symbolized. Seeing it broken was like watching that possibility collapse.
After a flurry of coordination, Laura Gallon —founder of the Arte Laguna Prize—arranged for their friends, Francesca and Paola, to meet us after we traveled from the other side of Venice by foot and train. They drove us deep into the countryside to reach a neon artisan named Maurizio, at Neon Susegana. By some improbable alignment, he had the exact American tubing and materials required to refabricate the broken segment. He worked with precision while we waited. We returned to Venice through peak rush-hour traffic, the fragile glass packed in a cardboard box, each movement carrying the risk of it all falling apart again. But it survived. The repair was made. The sculpture lit up.
That moment wasn’t just a recovery—it was a quiet revelation. The piece came together not just through intention, but through trust, timing, and the generosity of others. The journey to repair it—filled with uncertainty, coordination, and care—became just as meaningful as the final result. It was a reminder that sometimes an artwork isn’t completed by the artist or the viewer, but by the people who step in to help carry the vision forward. In that way, the accident didn’t diminish the work—it made it whole.
How do you keep yourself motivated every day?
My motivation is a contradiction: I receive visions in dreams, but I also suffer from intense sleep disorders—central apnoea, parasomnia, and other neurological symptoms. So sleep is both my inspiration and my battleground. Despite my suffering, I stay committed. My drive comes from love—love for truth, for beauty, for others. I see art as service. My goal is to give shape to the invisible—to let others experience what I’ve been shown. We spend a third of our lives asleep, yet dreams remain largely misunderstood. My work is about bridging that gap—making the unseen seen, not just for me but for anyone who needs to remember that what’s hidden isn’t gone.
A JUNO Award-Nominated artist, Yip studied animation at Sheridan College and sculpture at OCAD University. His work has graced international platforms, including New York, London, and South Korean venues. His unique artistic practice, echoing Clement Greenberg’s formalist theories, emphasizes the viewer’s active role, inviting them to reflexively engage with his art. Yip’s pieces challenge dichotomies between high and low art, abstract and representational, and spiritual and commercial aspects. Recent accolades include a first-place award at The Holy Art INFINITY in London, finalist selection for the Arte Laguna Prize 2023 in Venice, and recognition from the Canada Council for the Arts.