Australian Artists at Korea International Art Fair

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MARS artists; Bill Sampson and Samuel Tupou are set to make their first debut at the Korean International Art Fair later this year.

Korea is in a prime geographical location and is the proud owner of the biggest art fair in Asia. KIAF11 (Korean International Art Fair 2011) was established in 2002 under the auspices of Galleries Association of Korea.  After 9 successful years of creative performance, KIAF has become the most prominent art fair in Asia and they now celebrate their 10th anniversary with Australia as the guest country of honour.

Intellectual and thought provoking, Bill Sampson will showcase dynamic works, alive with manic colour and movement. Bill's intricate marbled artworks buzz with the meaningful, and yet contrarily, they are executed without any intention or gestural expression. His creations exert a certain attraction that cannot be described in words - a sweet taste of nothingness.

“My Marbling involves the construction of a large shallow bath containing various sizes of water-based paste onto which oil-based or acrylic paint is thrown and for the most part left to find its own form….. these marbling processes are resistant to any form of control especially when using oil paint where the idiosyncratic movement of the paints on the size make the outcome all but impossible to predict.

Bill completed his PhD at the VCA, and has exhibited widely throughout Melbourne, also participating in solo and group shows in London and Italy. Awards and residencies include the Athenaeum prize UMPA Art Prize, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne (2005); the West Dean College Residency, UK (2004); and the Keith & Elisabeth Murdoch Traveling Fellowship (2003). 

Hailed as one of Australia's most exciting emerging talents, artist Samuel Tupou combines Pacific Island influences with Street Art techniques and pop culture symbolism to create works that reflect the artist's own mixed cultural heritage. In Tupou's colourful vision, stencil drawn cows breathe fire while planes fly over power stations in the background, and flat areas are filled with a mish mash of patterns sourced from a variety of sources including Western wallpaper design, traditional Tongan patterning and Pop Art.

This new body of work is inspired by the largest cultural shift in Polynesia over the past 1000 years. The introduction of Christianity via missionaries and colonisation, drastically altered the cultural fabric of all Pacific Island nations. These new works feature large cut out silhouettes of characters from the bible, marked with Polynesian inspired patterns as well as biblical iconography floating amongst traditional patterning.  – Samuel Tupou ‘…through references to mass media, consumerism, advertising imagery, comic books and a consistently heavy dose of irony, he has certainly established a practice in the time-honored tradition of Warhol and Lichtenstein….known for repetition and mechanical reproduction, the Pop sensibility has provided a perfect general framework for Tupou….a central point at which notions of paradise meet with consumerism tradition.’ (Essay by David Broker, published Art Monthly Australia, No. 232. August 2010)

Samuel has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and included in ‘Snap Freeze, Still Life Now’, TarraWarra Museum.

WHERE: KIAF11 (The Korean International Art Fair 2011) COEX, 159 Samsung-dong Gangnam-gu Seoul, Korea
WHEN: 22 – 26 September 2011

MARS (Melbourne Art Room) is located in Port Melbourne, Australia.

Image:  Artist Bill Sampson standing next to work, Attacked During Global Warming while earthquake destroys harvest state 2007

 

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