Yen Tan's Poster Exhibit
" When Yen Tan was growing up in the Eighties, he didn't dream of making movie posters; he dreamed of making movies like the big American blockbusters that flooded the movie theatres of his native Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His parents, meanwhile, dreamed of their son having a viable career. And though Yen Tan's parents won the battle, you could argue Yen Tan won the war. They sent him to Drake University in far-off Des Moines, Iowa, to study advertising, but he attended film classes on the side and learned that there was a whole world of movies that didn't require $50 million to make – a dangerous realization for any aspiring filmmaker who had until that point been deterred from his desire by family obligation.
Tan's posters were good, and eventually his fellow indie filmmakers, equally low on funds, were calling on him to help them design posters for their own movies. Before he knew it, Tan had fallen into a side career as a graphic designer, creating posters for some of the biggest names in the small pond of Texas independent film, including Bryan Poyser (Lovers of Hate) and Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From). Tan's posters, with their simple yet daring imagery and their minimalist design, seem to capture the conflicted artist's desire to both create something beautiful and to sell it. - Austin Chronicle JOSH ROSENBLATT,"