Asia Now, Paris Asian Art Fair

Richard Koh Fine Art is pleased to showcase a group presentation of works by Anne Samat, Hasanul Isyraf Idris, Haffendi Anuar and Yeoh Choo Kuan at ASIA NOW, Paris Asian Art Fair, Booth A101, Paris from 18 to 22 October 2017. Through their unique use of icons, these artists address the understanding of culture and identity in an increasingly globalised environment.

Anne Samat presents Huntsman from her Tribal Chief Series to reflect upon one’s identity and role in a time of progress. Through contemporary interpretations, Anne creates a dialogue between the masculine and feminine through the weaving of industrial, domestic and everyday objects. She explores refreshed identities and contemporary culture through the socio-ecological and the neo-colonial cultural history of Malaysia.

Also building on the language of object-based work is Haffendi Anuar’s Migratory Objects, an immersive installation of painted “flocks” on boards. These shapes, often stand in for faces, alludes to a managed green paradise which reminded the artist of a home that was simultaneously foreign. Anuar investigates the consumption and dissemination of cultural debris as by-product of commercial tourism and trade through his “transformed” mask sculptures.

Fragments of folklore are transposed and imbued within the drawings of Hasanul Isyraf Idris’ drawings. Through detailed illustrations and vibrant colors, the artist creates a complex world in his Para-series. Inspired by the Greek God Morpheus, of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the artist adopts religious symbolisms and references local icons which he recorded throughout his trips around Asia.

Yeoh Choo Kuan explores the language of gestures and painterly residues through Windows. These gridded ‘window’ paintings expand on the artist’s expression of pictoral thinking as metaphors of his ideas of life and society. Through the grid like composition, Yeoh incites a longing for a transient scene impenetrable from afar, addressing an apparent divide of horizons.