Surface Tension

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A group show of five international artists





CONTENTS

6 Director’s Foreword 8 Charles Munka 26 Shohei Takasaki 44 Dan Baldwin 52 Laurent Segretier 64 Mila Fürstovà 70 Price List


DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD

The Cat Street Gallery is proud to announce its forthcoming group exhibition, SURFACE TENSION, opening in Hong Kong at The Space on 28 February, 2013. As the first of its three major group shows this year, the gallery will showcase this unique gathering of five artists who hail from all over the world, and whose works cross many media, each responding to the curatorial theme of the exhibition’s title. SURFACE TENSION will present over 40 works - many of which have been made specially for the show - tied together in different and critically engaging ways. Common threads weave between the different pieces, sometimes in execution - seen in physical characteristics and methods used such as paint on canvas, or the appropriation of certain imagery such as Japanese manga; sometimes in concept, expression and response to his or her environment - where the influence of the cities in which he or she lives palpably permeates the subject of the work; sometimes in challenges faced and tension felt - as the role of the artist today changes and morphs in the bright light of art market expectations and the shadows of what has come before. Featuring one of Japan’s most exciting young talents practicing today, and two from Hong Kong’s growing art scene, the presence of Asia-based artists is key to the identity of the show. Paired with two others from the UK and Europe, the combination of all five will present a unique look at how each artist engages with different materials and how curiously works can overlap and contrast in their manifestation. Whether painting on canvas, etching on paper, glazing on sculptural pottery, or transforming images through video - each artist’s fascinating individual approach to the notion of ‘surface’ will come together to embody larger notions of cultural cross-pollination in both aesthetic expression and conceptual practice, to create a truly compelling exhibition. Mandy d’Abo Founder and Director The Cat Street Gallery Zelie Walker Gallery Director The Cat Street Gallery

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CHARLES MUNKA

Charles Munka is undeniably a young master of paint and canvas. Born in France, and now living in Hong Kong, he channels the effervescent touch of expressionists before him like Tapies and Twombly, absorbing his surroundings, seeing them as ever-shifting spaces encoded with place, time and history. Munka’s prolific and passionate work begs intrigue as he delves into legend and myth. His highly accomplished skill – whether his knowing gestural brushstrokes, his harmonious use of composition, or his subtle manipulation of colour - has already captured the attention of institutions, galleries and collectors from all over the world. Inspired by the epic, allegorical classics from Ancient Greece and 19th century studies of Ancient Egypt, Munka harnesses his own nomadic experiences through having lived in Europe, and now Asia, creating mystical and symbolic abstract paintings. His complex and multi-layered works embody his captivation with the notion of a collective memory - something accumulating over time, documented through marks on a surface; often eroded, redrawn, hidden, uncovered. Munka has exhibited in France, Japan, LA, Hong Kong, and most recently has been commissioned to create works for Joyce Boutique Art Galleries in Hong Kong and Beijing. He was also a finalist in the 2012 Asia Contemporary Art Show Young Artist Prize.

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Great Expedition (The) Mixed media on tarpaulin 250 x 300 cm 2012

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Pharos Mixed media on canvas 145 x 137 cm 2012

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Traversee Triptych. Mixed media on canvas 268 x 170 cm 2012

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Lung

Where it all began

Mixed media on canvas 104 x 204 cm 2012

Mixed media on canvas 104 x 204 cm 2012


Antinoe Mixed media on canvas 167.5 x 160 cm 2011

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Monasterace Triptych. Mixed media on canvas 248.5 x 137.5 cm 2012

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Anatomy of Memory Mixed media on canvas 170 x 138 cm 2012

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Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

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Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

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Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

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Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

Collage on paper 34 x 42 cm 2012

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Shield Mixed media on cast iron 45 x 52 cm 2012

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Bridge to Burn Mixed media on card board record sleeve 43 x 43 cm 2012

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UNTITLED 1 Mixed media on wood 82 x 62 cm 2012

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UNTITLED 2 Mixed media on wood 82 x 62 cm 2012

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SHOHEI TAKASAKI

Japanese artist, Shohei Takasaki is living and working in Japan, and making a name for himself as an unstoppably expressive and talented artist in the budding contemporary art scene. Creating works which display his powerful and freestyle approach to painting, Takasaki is fascinated by notions of desire and the physicality of sexual attraction between human bodies, bringing his imagery alive on its 2-D surfaces, pulsing and undulating in rich colors and dynamic lines. Influenced by the key figures of the New York 1980s street culture scene Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring, and masters of expressionist painting like Picasso and Klimt, Takasaki’s provocative and joyful practice is, thrillingly, self- taught. With no formal training, the brilliant creative abilities of this young artist are wonderful to see, with startlingly sharp and witty touches amongst a wider poetic depth and passion within. Unafraid to walk the tightrope between abstraction and figuration, Takasaki distills his perception of the outside world and its inner individual passions, including his own, with neo-expressionist flair. There is something primitive and wild about Takasaki’s creations, and something romantic and insatiable too - like a beautiful beast willingly tamed by its captor, toying with the idea of escape. Takasaki has exhibited across Japan and Australia, as well as collaborating with several fashion brands. He has new book of his works being published this year.

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Lighthouse I Acrylic on canvas 52 x 60 cm 2011

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Lighthouse II Acrylic on canvas 52 x 60 cm 2011

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Lighthouse III Acrylic on canvas 52 x 60 cm 2011

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Lighthouse IV Acrylic on canvas 52 x 60 cm 2011

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Suddenly Acrylic, pen and carving on wood 72 x 93 cm 2011

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Naked In Acrylic, ink and collage on canvas 73 x 90 cm 2012

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Open Up Acrylic, pen, collage and carving on wood 80.2 x 100 cm 2012

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Desire Acrylic, oil pastel, collage on canvas 200 x 130 cm 2012

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Lighthouse of Body Acrylic and pencil on canvas 120 x 120 cm 2013

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Lighthouse of Body (2) Acrylic and pencil on canvas 120 x 120 cm 2013

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Like a Diary I Collage and ink on paper 51.5 x 82.3 cm 2012

Like a Diary J Collage and ink on paper 51.5 x 82.3 cm 2012

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Like a Diary K Collage and ink on paper 51.5 x 82.3 cm 2012

Like a Diary L Collage and ink on paper 51.5 x 82.3 cm 2012

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Confession of Mask Acrylic, pen and collage on canvas 51 x 57 cm 2011

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Confession of Mask 2 Acrylic, pen and collage on canvas 68 x 79 cm 2011

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Self Portrait Acrylic and spray on canvas 115 x 115 cm 2012

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DAN BALDWIN

British artist, Dan Baldwin, navigates a fine line between the sinister and the beautiful, taking references from a multitude of sources. His works feature candy colour, butterflies and childhood cartoons amidst guns and razors and this mixed media approach manages to inject a shot of realism into images that can often seem otherworldly. He has cultivated an esoteric and unique visual language, one that mocks the ridiculous and celebrates madness. His juxtapositions are often shocking, operating in the dangerous territory of dark humour and magical realism. Baldwin has channeled his characteristically vibrant and urban aesthetic into painting, print making and more recently very successful into ceramics. His large pots reference classical sculpture, Baroque showmanship and fine art antiques, dragging the traditional craft into the contemporary art arena. Baldwin’s superlative technique and conceptual brilliance position him at the forefront of the new Young British Artist movement. His work is internationally celebrated, championed and collected by an exclusive clientele. Baldwin has exhibited his paintings, prints and ceramics around the world, regularly enjoys sell-out shows, and is already sold at auction in the secondary market establishing him as a highly sought after talent in the contemporary art world.

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Anthropomorphic Hand painted ceramic tiles on two birch ply panels (select tiles smashed) 204 x 172 cm 2012

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Dark Forces Mixed media on canvas 125 x 125 cm 2012

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Flirting with Death Black glazed earthenware 47 x 27 cm 2012

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Spirit Mixed media on canvas 125 x 125 cm 2011

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Nostalgia

Jubilee

Hand thrown earthenware pot with 3D cast clay mouldings, decals, multiple glazes, mother of pearl, 20% pure gold, platinum and copper 67 x 38 cm 2012

Hand thrown earthenware pot with 3D cast clay mouldings, decals, multiple glazes, mother of pearl, 20% pure gold, platinum and copper 71 x 38 cm 2012

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Deficit Hand thrown earthenware pot with 3D cast clay mouldings, decals, multiple glazes, mother of pearl, 20% pure gold, platinum and copper 75 x 38 cm 2012

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LAURENT SEGRETIER

Laurent Segretier is a visionary multi-media artist whose artwork knows no bounds. As part of the ‘new media generation’, he has been charting new territory with his morphing, dark and surreal use of photography and digital media - manipulating images and videos to produce other-worldly artworks. Originally from France, Segretier is living and working in Hong Kong, and is critically influenced by both European and Asian culture in equal measure – from Murakami’s surreal writing to Francis Bacon; from Japanese manga to David Cronenberg’s films. Inspired by the expansive, evocative themes of rebirth, identity, transhumanism - Segretier creates haunting imagery as an insight to his own fantasy world - mining the blurry frontier between childhood innocence and adult experience. As both expeditor and consumer, he negotiates a media inherently ambivalent - meticulously controlling perameters in search of perfect colour palettes, and simultaneously allowing unknown degrees of chance in order to provoke distortion giving a paradoxical materiality – a textural pixelation - to something immaterial. Segretier’s works have featured in major publications including Monocle and Dazed & Confused. The artist has exhibited throughout Europe and Asia, and was selected for the Designer’s day 2011 in Paris. He is now supported as one of the representatives of the Nouvelle Garde Francaise, ‘French New Wave’.

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Flesh Fragment #6 Print 100 x 80 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Flesh Fragment #3 Print 100 x 80 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Flesh Fragment #1 Print 130 x 98 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Blue Fragments 05 Print 130 x 98 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Robot #1 -1

Robot #3 -1

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Robot #3 -4

Robot #4 -2

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Robot #6 -1

Robot #6 -2

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

Print 80 x 60 cm Ed. 1/3 + AP, 2013

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Noli Me Tangere #01 Video animation, 2min45sec, 1080p, variable size Sound: TNEM Ed. 1/3 + 2AP, 2013

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Robot #1 Video animation, 6min04sec, 1080p, variable size Sound: TNEM Ed. 1/3 + 2AP, 2013

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Robot #4 Video animation, 7min35sec, 1080p, variable size Sound: TNEM Ed. 1/3 + 2AP, 2013

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MILA FÜRSTOVÀ

Mila Fürstovà, born in Czechoslovakia and living and working in the UK, creates delicate ethereal etchings, pursuing an age-old technique in a contemporary context. Described as a storyteller and an alchemist of form, Fürstovà’s dazzling images are both contemporary and personal, searching in the surreality of dreams, tales and fables that can map the framework of our consciousness. Whilst referencing history, culture and mythology, she cuts, folds and overlays her works, often printing on glass or other transparent surfaces, and thus creates imagery that is multidimensional in terms of both form and meaning. The initial image undergoes metamorphosis as the alchemical process of etching progresses through each of its stages. Mila Fürstovà, is an award winning internationally exhibited artist, who has shown in 20 solo shows in many countries including Britain, USA, France and the Czech Republic over the last decade. During this time she has won 14 prestigious awards. Her work has become part of important private and public collections, including that of Queen Elizabeth II and the V&A Museum in London and has featured in numerous publications.

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Deer Cut paper 38 x 47 cm 2010

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Other Skies III Etching & cut paper 135 x 135 cm 2011

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All Things Are Known To The Soul I Etching 145 x 190 cm (72 x 84 cm each) 2011

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Other Skies I Etching 120 x 120 cm 2011

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The Cat Street Gallery 222 Hollywood Road | T + 852 2291 0006 | www.thecatstreetgallery.com 74


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