AGATHE BOUTON
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Agathe Bouton, is a French printmaker and multimedia artist known for her contemporary approach to printmaking. She earned her BFA and MFA from ESSAA Duperré in Paris. Over the past 20 years, Bouton has lived and exhibited in cities like Paris, London, Philadelphia, New York, Rangoon, Dakar, and Istanbul. Her solo exhibitions include venues such as the Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain in Dakar, Galerie Martine Namy-Caulier in Paris, Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia and Zürcher Gallery in New York. Bouton has received numerous awards, in 2022 she received the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art and being a finalist in the 98th Annual International Competitions of The Print Center in Philadelphia in 2023. Recently she won the Louise K.Binswanger Prize for best Artist. Her work is part of collections in prestigious French institutions like the Bibliothèque Nationale and American collections such as the Free Library of Philadelphia and Swarthmore College Library.
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Burmese Days” series is inspired by the rich textiles of Burma (Myanmar), where I lived from 2006 to 2010. For these pieces my inspiration came from the shape of a pleated skirt, common in eastern Shan State, when it is laid flat or flared out in a full spin. I explore the beauty and meaning of these fabrics through some exquisite relief prints and monoprints onto local Burmese handmade mulberry paper. My pieces hint at women’s lives lived within these precious textiles as they are worn, washed, faded by the sun, lashed by the rain, torn, repaired and worn again. My aim is never to mimic the fabric exactly, but to reflect the lifespan of a skirt - from the intricacies of the original sewing to the repairs, often crude, that add layers of colour and interest. I want to show that these deeply valued textiles bear witness to the lives of the women who grow, play, work, celebrate and die within them. We are challenged to imagine moments of these lives – the special and the mundane. Combining monoprint and woodcut I print by hand onto handmade Burmese and Japanese paper, and add stitching by hand.
