Yu Danya was born in China and lived and studied in Singapore and Australia. She spent her formative years living, studying and working as a foreigner, constantly relocating and moving between places. Searching for a motif that captures her identity and the spirit of life living in a city, she found that alleys, small streets and old buildings resonated deeply with her. During this time, she created a significant body of works depicting Singapore scenes hidden from sight, capturing the different moods of these places at various times and during weather conditions.

The Passage #03 depicts the back alley of a row of pre-war shophouses on Queen Street in Singapore. On the far horizon stands a modern office tower of the Bugis Junction towering over the refurbished pre-war shophouses that have been converted to a bustling retail and shopping belt known as Bugis Street, a feature of Singapore’s urban planning and conservation effort.

The scene draws the eye to a vanishing point where the yellow headlights of a car glow intensely, contrasting the cold, grey tones of darkened skies and rain. The composition is carefully orchestrated, revealing the artist’s skills in mixing and layering colours to achieve the effects of wet rain on different surfaces. Yu also pays careful attention to tonal qualities in the artwork’s interplay of shadow and light.