Yau Bee Ling was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1972 and studied painting at the Malaysian Institute of Art, graduating in 1995. Since then she has exhibited her works extensively, being recognised for her distinctive layered works and is regarded as one of the most powerful contemporary painters in Malaysia today.

The artist’s most recent exhibition at Wei-Ling Contemporary Gallery in March 2013 entitled The Women marked her 15 years as an artist. This exhibition showed women in a variety of different groupings – standing alone, with their children, signifying at times a sense of isolation, but also exploring the various relationship links in the artist’s life. The layer upon layer of colours present in this body of work symbolises the unfolding of her many “layers” of introspection. With this exhibition, the artist’s wish was for her audience to delve deeper within the layers to gain a deeper connection with her work than what may merely be viewed on the surface.

Yau Bee Ling’s works have attracted attention overseas and in the past has been invited to exhibit her works in Japan, Singapore,Pakistan,China,Hong Kong,Sweden and Bangladesh. Her works were included in the 2nd Fukuoka Triennale in 2002 and were exhibited at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan. In 2004, her paintings travelled to the Hokkaido Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the “Soul of Asia: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Collection” exhibition and in 2005, she was awarded the Rimbun Dahan, Malaysian – Australian Artist-in-Residence programme. Her works have been collected by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan and Galeri Petronas, Malaysia amongst others.