Arndt Art Agency

Asia Now Paris 2018

PRESS

Art and Market, Spotlight on Filipino Artists at ASIA NOW, 17 October, 2018

Left: Del Kathryn Barton, "you would shoot her down" (2018), acrylic on French linen, painting: 240 x 180 cm
Right: Yeo Kaa, "I can't stop crying" (2017), acrylic on canvas, 60 × 60 cm

Asia Now Paris

17.10. - 21.10. 2018

Arndt Art Agency Presents Two Curated Artist Presentations:

Artist Project: Del Kathryn Barton (A104)
Artist Project: Yeo Kaa (SP4)

Venue: 9 avenue Hoche 75008 Paris

Arndt Art Agency is pleased to present two curated solo presentations by one of Australia's leading contemporary artists, Del Kathryn Barton and one of the rising stars of the Filipino art landscape Yeo Kaa during Paris Art Week in October 2018.

Del Kathryn Barton

The two-time Archibald winner – Australia’s most prestigious portrait painting prize – is best known for her highly detailed and vibrant figurative paintings that draw upon strong female figures and personal and idiosyncratic musings concerning desire, sex, motherhood and the natural world.

Her organic compositions encompass a multitude of stippled dots in varying sizes that convey inner spaces where living organisms vibrate beyond their own skins in a miasma of matter. Humans, animals and plants are unbound from their traditionally observed categories in Barton's post-human environs.

These beings that inhabit Barton’s pieces are hyper-aware and often reveal erotically charged fantasy worlds. Here, viewers are invited to explore a landscape where everything is fecund and alive. Where no part of the picture plane is without adornment, and no figure or creature is less charmed than any other.

In her new series of works for Asia Now Paris 2018, Barton places the female figure in focus. Populated by precisely painted "she beast" creatures, the artist presents a selection of large and small-scale paintings accompanied by two major bronze sculptures that extend her imaginative, creative vision in three-dimensions.

About the artist:

Born in Sydney, Australia in 1972, Del Kathryn Barton is widely recognised as one of Australia's leading figurative painters of her generation. Barton graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales in 1993, where she was subsequently appointed as lecturer in drawing.

Barton was awarded The Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Australia’s most prestigious Portrait painting prize - twice in 2013 and 2008 . Additionally, she has been nominated for a range of awards that include the Dobell Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2007) and The Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1995). Barton produced the acclaimed film animation “Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose”–a haunting adaptation of Wilde's short story about the price of love – that made its world premiere at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. Her film received critical acclaim and was awarded the Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film.

Most recently she produced the short film “RED” (2016) starring Cate Blanchett that premiered at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. RED explores the mythological notion of the female spider as the creator of the universe, and the unusual sexual cannibalism of the Australian Redback Spider. Female power and complexity collides with the innocence of the child, and primal nature of the spider in a surrealist celebration of sex, birth, death and cannibalism.

Del Kathryn Barton selected group exhibition participations include: Australia Now: mad love, Arndt Art Agency A3, Berlin, Germany (2017), Like-ness, Albertz Benda, New York, USA (2016), Express Yourself: Romance Was Born for Kids, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2014), Dark Heart, Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide, Australia (2014), Theatre of the World, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, Australia (2012), Lightness and Gravity, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2012), Freehand: Recent Australia Drawing, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia (2010/11), 2009 Wynne Prize for Landscape, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2009), Half a World Away: Drawings from Glasgow, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Sydney, Australia, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Centre, Buffalo, New York, USA (2002).

Her numerous solo exhibitions include: the highway is a disco, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2017) r u a bunny?, Albertz Benda, New York, USA (2017), Del Kathryn Barton, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2017), RED, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia (2017), The Nightingale and the Rose, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne, Australia (2016), the highway is a disco, ARNDT, Singapore (2015), Electro Orchid, RoslynOxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2014), The Nightingale and the Rose, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia (2012), the stars eat your body, Kaliman Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2009), the whole of everything, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (2008) and thankyou for loving me, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne Australia (2005).

Yeo Kaa

Known for her eye-candy colours and figuration style reminiscent of cartoons and animations, Yeo Kaa is a young Filipino artist whose themes and subjects in her work contrast sharply from the pop vibe evoked by her imagery. A graduate of Advertising from the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila, she has exhibited widely in the Philippines and has participated in international residencies, in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, and Haukijarvi, Finland. She is particularly interested in dark themes such as depression, suicide, and anxiety, among others, both drawn from personal experiences as well as general observations of human tendencies.

For her presentation at Asia Now Paris the artist will present an installation comprising a range of small scale paintings and works on paper produced on her recent A3 PROJECTS SUMMER RESIDENCY in Berlin. For this project, Yeo Kaa brings her distinctly candid portrayal of dark themes and sensitive realities in vivid and bright palette to the world of materialism and consumerism. In this exhibition, she confronts an individual’s desire to acquire material things, to possess something through purchase, in a straightforward manner. She paints random subjects from her usual repertoire, but this time highlights the process of exchange between an art’s monetary value and the purchasing power it creates. She declares in each work the mutual benefit between the artist as a creator driven by an aspiration to own a certain commodity, and the consumer who turns this into a reality through the purchase of the artist’s work. This upfront take on the relationship between art and the culture of consumption in a capitalist society works both as an honest commentary and a parody of the sale and circulation of objects, whether art objects or consumer items. It also implicates the artist, so often distanced from the commercial nature of the production and consumption of objects, as someone who also actively takes part in its dynamics. It strips the artist of exemption from the inevitable grip of the market and capital.

About the artist:

Born in 1989, Palawan, the Philippines, Yeo Kaa lives and works in Manila. Her selected solo exhibitions include: "Anxious Lustless Pechay", Arndt Art Agency, Berlin, Germany (2018), “Sorry Sorry Sorry - Art Fair Philippines”, Arndt Fine Art, Manila, Philippines (2018), “Alone but Not Lonely”, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore, Singapore (2018), “For My Mother”, Blanc Gallery, Katipunan, Philippines (2018), “Distressful Satisfaction”, Office for Contemporary Art, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2017), “2:55AM”, Secret Fresh, Manila, Philippines (2016) and “Okay”, Artinformal, Mandaluyong, Philippines (2015).

Her work has been included in the following recent group exhibitions: “Got Paper?”, Ruci Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia (2018), “Origins – Art Cube Gallery”, Manila, Philippines (2018), “Terra Incognita”, Hilger BROT Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria (2017), “CHAINTEETHTENSION IV”, Secret Fresh Gallery, Manila, Philippines (2017), Yavuz Gallery at Art Basel, Hong Kong (2017), “SELF”, Secret Fresh Gallery at Art Fair Philippines (2017), “The Extension of Medium”, Nunu Fine Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2016), “CHAINTEETHTENSION III”, Secret Fresh Gallery, Manila, Philippines (2016), “Colorum”, Vargas Museum, Manila, Philippines (2016), “Phosphenes”, Secret Fresh, Manila, Philippines (2016), “Blank”, Secret Fresh, Manila, Philippines (2015) and “You Are Here”, Vinyl on Vinyl, Manila, Philippines (2015). Her latest residency in 2017 was at the Office for Contemporary Art, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.