
22 Jan Homecoming
Happy New Year 2018 from all of us here at Artemis Art! HOMECOMING is a group exhibition of ten young and emerging Malaysian artists whom we’ve featured in our international art fair participations, and exhibitions organized abroad. Since our first international art fair experience back in 2013, we have exhibited a total of 22 Malaysian artists, from which we have selected 10 to feature in this exhibition: Ajim Juxta, Alexandra Hon, Haris Rashid, Jasmine Kok, Justin Y, Nik Mohd Shahfiz, Nik Mohd Shazmie, Ruzzeki Harris, Umibaizurah Mahir, and Viko Zhijune.
HOMECOMING begins its run on January 18 and continues until February 11 2018.
Artemis Art will be hosting an opening party for HOMECOMING at 3pm on Sunday, January 21 2018. In part, it will be a celebration of the young and emerging Malaysian artists with whom we’ve collaborated with in our numerous art fair and exhibition outings abroad, and also as a slightly belated celebration to usher in the new year. Details for the event may be found at our Facebook event page for the party.
Since our first international art fair participation as a gallery in 2013, Artemis Art has exhibited the works of over 20 Malaysian young and emerging artists abroad, both in art fairs and in exhibitions organized outside the country. Ten of these artists have been selected to be part of HOMECOMING, as detailed below. Included in this review is the complete lineup of artworks exhibited, in order of the participating artist.
Ajim Juxta
Click here for artist profile
International art fairs
Young Art Taipei 2016
Young Art Taipei 2016
Bazaar Art Jakarta 2016
Citizen Art Shanghai 2016
Ningbo International City Arts Expo 2016
Young Art Taipei 2017
For young Malaysian visual artist Ajim Juxta, Young Art Taipei 2016 was not only his first international exposure, but the art fair became a pivotal point in the young artist’s career.
That year, Ajim became the first Malaysian artist to be selected as one of the 3 winners of that year’s Young Art Award, presented annually at the art fair. The main prize was a 3-month long residency in Hsinchu, and the opportunity to exhibit in Taiwan.
Since then, Ajim Juxta has been a featured artist for Artemis Art’s participation in several other art fairs, including Bazaar Art Jakarta 2016 and Young Art Taipei 2017. Artemis Art will be hosting Ajim’s next solo exhibition in April 2018, and HOMECOMING is a prelude to that momentous event.
Alexandra Hon
Originally shown at Young Art Taipei 2017, The Querent’s Divine Reflection is a set of five paintings based on the popular Rider-Waite tarot card deck design, the five artworks representing cards I to V of the Major Arcana, without depicting the central figure after whom the cards are named.
This, according to Alexandra Hon, allows for a more “introspective experience of self-reflection” in the tarot reading, as the fortune seeker (the ‘Querent’) sees their own reflection in the card, hence becoming the archetype represented by the individual card.
It is Alexandra’s opinion that this literal ‘self-reflection’, therefore, enables a deeper understanding one’s own circumstances in conjunction with the symbolisms depicted in the cards. ‘The reading’ then becomes more personalized, and hopefully more relevant, in the attempt to seek what fortunes lie ahead along one’s life journey.
Haris Rashid
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International art fairs & exhibitions
Art Kaohsiung 2015
Young Art Taipei 2016
Vice Versa (2016)
Citizen Art Shanghai 2016
Ningbo International City Arts Fair 2016
Young Art Taipei 2017
Shenzhen International Art Fair 2017
Since Artemis Art hosted his first solo in 2015, Beauty In The Beast, the art of young visual Haris Rashid have been frequently exhibited by us, and have featured prominently in several art fair participations overseas. The four works selected for HOMECOMING all had their debuts abroad, and are being exhibited in the gallery for the first time.
Jasmine Kok
Jasmine Kok is a multi-modal artist who has produced works across several media and forms, but is perhaps best known as a sculptor. She has been featured in two of Artemis Art’s international art fair participations in 2015 and 2016, where her ceramics wall sculptures were exhibited.
Justin Y
One of the artists we exhibited during our debut showing at Young Art Taipei in 2015 was Hong Kong-based Malaysian artist Justin Y. His finger-painted abstracts are a celebration of deep emotions, expressed through color. Over the years, Justin has been quite successful with his works, and we feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him.
Nik Mohd Shahfiz
The youngest of the three very talented painter brothers, Nik Mohd Shazmie was one of the seven young Malaysian artists we exhibited in Vice Versa back in 2016. The month-long exhibition was held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in conjunction with that year’s Jogja Art Weeks, an event-packed fringe program accompanying the annual ArtJog main event. In addition to the seven artists, the exhibition also included the participation of six young and emerging Indonesian visual artists.
HOMECOMING features one of the two works by Shahfiz exhibited in Jogja, juxtaposing images of fictitious on-screen killers with images of wild animals, asking the viewer an important question: between man and beast, which is the more vicious?
Nik Mohd Shazmie
Artemis Art’s participation in international art fairs will usually include at least one Malaysian visual artist, and our participation in Singapore Contemporary 2017 was no exception, when we exhibited works by the middle of the three Nik brothers, Nik Mohd Shazmie.
Two out of the four artworks originally shown at the fair have been included in HOMECOMING. Both works delve into the question of identity, each addressing this in a slightly different way, but representative of Shazmie’s current style of figurative abstraction.
Ruzzeki Harris
Artemis Art’s debut 2016 participation in Art Taipei featured a series of works by emerging Malaysian artist, Ruzzeki Harris, created specifically for the art fair.
Possessed is Ruzzeki’s critique of what he observes to be social and popular culture amongst kids and teenagers nowadays, particularly with regards to their obsession with electronic gadgetry. Ruzzeki believes these gadget have become a sort of wizardry device that manipulate one’s mind and behavior, thus turning them into ‘modern world zombies’: unconscious, anti-social, introverted.
Two works from the series have been selected for inclusion in this exhibition, and the complete Possessed series of artworks may be viewed here.
Umibaizurah Mahir
When the word “ceramics” is mentioned, any association with, or notion of, contemporary art might just be furthest from what one’s mind may typically conjure. Until they view the artworks by emerging Malaysian artist, Umibaizurah Mahir, quite known in Malaysia for pushing the envelope when it comes to this medium.
Artemis Art has had the privilege of exhibiting her work in a couple of international art fairs to-date, and she is certainly an artist we look forward to work with more in the coming years.
Viko Zhijune (吴芷君)
Click here for artist profile
International art fairs
Citizen Art Shanghai 2016
Ningbo International City Arts Expo 2016
Young Art Taipei 2017
Shenzhen International Art Fair 2017
Over the years, one of Artemis Art’s primary focus areas has been on promoting young artists, one of the young Malaysians we have exhibited abroad is Viko Zhijune.
Viko’s works are introspective examinations of young angst, observed through her own life’s experience, and what she has observed in the lives of her peers. Also of note is her bold experimentation with different mediums utilized in the creation of her art, demonstrated in the artworks selected for this exhibition.
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