Yavuz is pleased to participate in the inaugural edition of Tokyo Gendai with a group presentation by critically-acclaimed artists from the Asia-Pacific region — Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan, Karen Black, Saskia Pintelon, Caroline Rothwell and Pinaree Sanpitak. Our presentation features important historical and newly commissioned works in the form of drawing, painting and sculpture.
Filipino/Australian artist-duo Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan will showcase a work from their iconic “Left Wing Project” series with a wing-like sculpture of hand-forged sickles fabricated in collaboration with their local blacksmithing community in Magdalena, Philippines. The ongoing series reflects the complex social realities facing agrarian communities and draw reference to countries with leftist political histories.
Debuting with Yavuz Gallery in Tokyo is Australian artist Karen Black, with newly commissioned paintings that teeter between figuration and abstraction. Infused with its often dystopian subject, the painted canvas becomes politicised with events and incidents that subvert their material status. The visceral application of paint is equally evocative of the mythology and symbolism Black utilises.
Sri Lanka based, Belgian artist Saskia Pintelon presents boldly layered paintings and collages that are characteristically figurative, yet very personal. Inspired by local and universal issues, the works encompass observations of war, politics, humour and pathos. Pintelon has exhibited with the Gallery in several solo exhibitions since 2010, showcasing her signature mixed-media collages that provide a kaleidoscope of the physical and the emotional in her characteristic tongue-in-cheek approach as she subtracts, extracts and adds to give us a glimpse into what makes us really human.
Australian multidisciplinary artist, Caroline Rothwell mines the subset of the natural environment and art, through the creation of hybrid flora and fauna sculptures, paintings, and animated film, that question humanity’s current position in the world. For her work in Tokyo, Rothwell draws on archival and natural history imagery and references current infrastructure from contemporary urban spaces.
Renowned Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak, will present a series of miniature sculptures that are hand-fabricated using torn stacks of natural Mulberry paper shaped into a ‘Breast Stupa’ alongside two paintings that draw upon her lived experiences as a woman. She is arguably Asia’s most established conceptual artists with an artistic practice that revolves around the human body and form as a vessel of experience and perception. Sanpitak’s sensorial inquiries also reveal a keen sensitivity towards a range of materials such as textiles, glass, ceramic and metal, informing her various approaches in collage, drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.