Agathe de Bailliencourt Accepting imperfection and impermanence is key to understanding Agathe de Bailliencourt’s work. She utilizes disorder, spontaneity and urgency to attain a freedom untainted by reasoning and restraint. Agathe’s drawings and paintings are built spontaneously upon the process of leaving marks– scribbles, doodles and large bursts of primary colours. Over the years, Agathe has endeavoured to expand beyond her initial framed medium of paper or canvas. She embraces the idea of working spaces, and being out of a frame. The resulting installations often give an impression to grow as a continuum with no end.
Je M’en Fous 37 (2010) acrylic, pastels, markers on canvas, 80 x 110 cm Agathe de Bailliencourt (b. 1974, France; lives and works in Germany)
Agathe de Bailliencourt graduated from Ecole des Beaux-Arts Cergy in 1995, and Ecole Boulle Paris in 1998. Since then, Agathe has been exhibiting in various venues in Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Berlin, Yogyakarta, Hong Kong, India, and New York. Agathe de Bailliencourt had also been commissioned by various corporations and institutions, be it limited-edition merchandises Converse (limited edition shoes, 2007), Comme Des Garcons (limited edition T-shirts, 2004); as well as wall painting and permanent installations: National Art Council (2006), Graf Osaka (2009), Freies Museum (2011).
Fauzulyusri The work of Fauzulyusri has been consistently strong over his decade-long career, with 6 solo exhibitions and countless group exhibitions to his name. His ability to pragmatically push his painting in new directions while maintaining a vocabulary of individual mark-making has arrived at a mature expression. A rougher surface than linen, the jute’s heavy woven thread compliments the kind of signature surface scarring, loose irreverence and layering that have become fundamental to the structure of Fauzul’s images. Viewer can easily dissect the image into layers that build the picture, not only in terms of traditional spatial depth from thin paint on raw jute to a dense top application, but also as a device in creating texture within the painting to enliven the surface. It animates the isolated figures and forms so that they appear to float, masked and cropped collagestyle by the dense upper surface. While it is easy to read Fauzul’s paintings as the games and dreams of a child, Fauzul’s geometric abstractions also have the urbanity of graffiti, of scuffed and scarred walls and that sense of decay of contemporary life.
Ala Mode (2010) mixed media on canvas, 152.4 x 152.4 cm Fauzulyusri (b. 1974, Kedah, Malaysia)
Fauzulyusri graduated from UiTM Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia in 1999, and has been exhibiting in various venues in Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Singapore, and UK. Fauzulyusri ‘s artworks are in the public collections of Balai Seni Lukis Negara (KL), Bank Negara Malaysia (KL), Kementrian Pembangunan Wanita dan Keluarga (KL), Maybank Finance Bhd (KL, Malaysia), among other institutions.
Froilan Calayag “As a child, I saw images on wall, in coffee stains, in the clouds. My child’s eyes saw magical things everywhere, beautiful things that dwelt only in the powerful world of my imagination. Many years have passed, and I did not see those things anymore. I looked at the wall and they were blank, they told me there was an end to everything. I looked at the coffee stains and all they told me was how many days I had been sleepless, working, working, working. I looked at the clouds, they did not reach out to me, they only told me I could not fly. I saw that there was nothing I could nourish the beauty and joy that I had inside me as a child. I wondered where all those things had gone. Until I discovered that through my art, through my creation, I could bring back those things in my childhood that I have been longing to see again.”
Here Comes Hope With Soft Chaos (2010) oil on canvas, 244 x 244 cm diptych Froilan Calayag (b. 1982 in Manila, Philippines)
Froilan Calayag earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines. He was the grand prize winner at the 2004 Shell National Students Art Competition, finalist at the 2006 Metrobank Art and Design Excellence, and finalist at the 2009 Philippine Art Awards.