The Work

Moonlit figures move through flooded landscape during the Indian monsoon season, their bodies half-submerged in water reflecting an eerie night sky. Joseph begins each canvas by painting a single vivid hue across the entire surface, then introduces figuration improvisationally, displacement transforms into communal resilience as lovers cavort and children dance in tent-lined streets. Working from memory, she builds up and wipes down layers of pigment in cycles that give paintings what critics call a "still-alive quality," where quotidian moments take on the heft of the extraordinary.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED INSTITUTIONAL. Diploma from Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Post-Graduate Diploma from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Featured in Centre Pompidou Paris "Mémoires des Futurs / Modernités Indiennes" (2017), 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam residency (2015), inaugural Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012), Setouchi Triennale Japan (2016). Daughter of ferryman-turned-factory-worker from working-class Parumala, Kerala, India.

Market Intelligence

Represented by David Zwirner following London solo "Pennungal: Lives of women and girls" (2024) and New York debut "Rain over the river" (November 2025–present). Co-represented by Stevenson with "The Hushed History of Oblivion" Cape Town (2023). Work held in Metropolitan Museum New York. Auction record: USD4,325 (Saffronart, Mumbai, 2017), with minimal secondary activity; primary market dominates at mid-four to low-five-figure USD post-Zwirner, versus the pre-2024 sub-USD5,000 range.

Collection Rationale

Anchors South Asian contemporary holdings continuing the Baroda School figurative tradition alongside Bhupen Khakhar and Sudhir Patwardhan. Liquid flux technique creates distinctive visual signature. Complements collectors building female Indian painters, post-colonial memory work, or flooding narratives. Smaller scale (14×18 inches) provides accessible entry before David Zwirner pricing reaches institutional levels. Timing favours acquisition before the North American market absorbs the New York debut momentum and the secondary premium develops.

The Work

Twenty-four Indian metal containers sit atop individual bases, each vessel crowned with hand-torn mulberry paper held by stitched thread. The kinetic element introduces gentle rotation, transforming the static arrangement into a meditation on equilibrium; containers that once held sustenance now cradling delicate paper forms that evoke both Buddhist offering bowls and breast shapes. Hand-stitching needle and thread anchors mulberry fibre to metal, creating tension between the industrial vessel and the organic material. The work draws together Sanpitak's signature vocabulary: the vessel as body, the breast as sacred architecture, the offering bowl as site of exchange and generosity.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED. BFA University of Tsukuba Japan (1986). Work held in Museum of Modern Art New York, M+ Hong Kong, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington DC, Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery/QGOMA, Brisbane, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Seattle Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum Chiang Mai, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Featured in 59th Venice Biennale main exhibition "The Milk of Dreams" curated by Cecilia Alemani (2022), Bangkok Art Biennale (2023), 18th Sydney Biennale (2012), Setouchi Triennale (2019). Solo institutional exhibitions include National Gallery Singapore (2018), Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Sydney (2014), Toledo Museum of Art (2015), Hancock Shaker Village Museum (2022). 2007 Silpathorn Award from Thai Ministry of Culture.

Market Intelligence

Featured at inaugural Art Basel Qatar, February 2026, with a solo presentation "Vessels”, signals institutional confidence in Asia-Pacific market expansion. Current exhibition "Breast Stupa Topiary" at Dib Museum Bangkok (December 2025–August 2026). Auction record USD23,963 for "Breast Vessel" at Christie's Hong Kong (2019). MACAN Museum Jakarta acquired group including "Breast Stupa Topiary" (2013) and "Offering Vessel" shown at Venice Biennale (2024). Work accessible at six-figure entry point positions, Sanpitak competitively within the established Southeast Asian contemporary market, while major museum acquisitions demonstrate sustained institutional validation. Limited auction presence indicates primary market strength through stable representation.

Collection Rationale

Essential for serious collections focused on Southeast Asian feminist practice, contemporary Buddhist-inflected art, or material investigation of sacred/domestic intersections. Kinetic element and use of traditional Thai mulberry paper technique connects contemporary practice to craft lineage while multicultural sourcing (Indian vessels) demonstrates transnational Asian dialogue. Complements collections building positions in women artists exploring body politics, materiality, and spirituality; natural adjacency to Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Lee Bul. Venice Biennale platform and Art Basel Qatar solo presentation indicate accelerating institutional momentum for mid-career Asian women artists. Acquisition secures work from an artist whose three-decade practice demonstrates consistent conceptual rigour before broader Western market recognition drives pricing upward.

The Work

Architectural fragments cast from built surfaces are bound together with extruded polystyrene and expanding foam, then coated in render to create a unified wall-like surface. Kimber paints a single vivid hue across the blank canvas before introducing pencil outlines that transfer shapes from preparatory drawings, creating a scaffolding for geometric planes that overlap and interpenetrate. Set-construction techniques make ordinary materials perform like something solid; the resultant form appears carved from a larger whole, with painted elements layered into the physical surface so that material and image continually exchange qualities.

Artist Position

POST-EMERGING/ PRE-MID-CAREER. MFA Painting from National Art School Sydney. Works held in the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia collection and Artbank. British School at Rome residency (2014) researching fresco spatial illusion, Artspace Sydney residency (2017), Parramatta Artists Studios. Finalist, Sulman Prize, Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging). Lecturer in Painting at the National Art School and tutor in Art Processes & Architecture at the University of Sydney. PhD candidate UNSW Art & Design on painting as a critical spatial practice.

Market Intelligence

Solo exhibition "A Caressing Gaze" at UNSW Galleries closed November 2025. Featured in NEW16 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2016), MCA Collection: Perspectives on Place (2021). Exhibited Centre Pompidou Paris (2017). Permanent wall relief commission, Bronte, NSW, demonstrates collector confidence in site-specific architectural practice. Mid-range pricing USD8,000 for 90×125cm scale positions works as accessibility relative to the institutional validation trajectory.

Collection Rationale

Anchors Australian contemporary holdings exploring architecture, memory, and materiality through hybrid painting-sculpture. A technique that combines fresco, relief, and set construction creates a distinctive visual language distinct from conventional abstraction. Complements collectors building positions in spatial practice, architectural fragment work, or memory-based conceptual painting. Accessible entry, coupled with institutional momentum from recent UNSW solo and MCA collection inclusions, elevates market positioning. Works on this scale command presence while remaining acquisition-friendly for emerging collectors building museum-quality Australian contemporary holdings.

The Work

Gestural forms surge across coarse cotton, oscillating between assembly and dissolution. Bold compositional lines charge the surface while chromatic intensity activates negative space, what appears as background functions equally as compositional force. Butt's process involves applying and removing paint across multiple works simultaneously, so a gesture from one painting seeds the next, creating cross-pollination across the studio. Brushstrokes reveal physicality: dragged, poured, rubbed, layered. The work refuses stable categorisation, hovering between image and object, abstraction and figuration, with forms that recall landscape without depicting it.

Artist Position

MID-CAREER EMERGING. Honours Victorian College of the Arts University of Melbourne (2013), current MFA candidate Monash University. Work held in Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Artbank Australia, Muswellbrook Shire Art Collection, Gippsland Art Gallery. Featured in "The Intelligence of Painting" Museum of Contemporary Art Australia curated by Suzanne Cotter and Manya Sellers (March–July 2025); hallmark survey of 14 Australian women painters spotlighting contemporary painting's vitality. First female Australian artist awarded tenancy at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, Cornwall, UK in the studios' 140-year history (2019). Winner Muswellbrook Art Prize for Painting acquisitive (2024), George Hicks Award (2012). Finalist Len Fox Painting Award, Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Omnia Art Prize, Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize, Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize. 

Market Intelligence

No secondary market presence, exclusively primary market. MCA acquisition "Within the Garden (Autumn Painting 2)" (2022) signals institutional confidence in early-stage career. Exhibited at Sydney Contemporary 2025, demonstrating fair-level visibility. Pricing at USD7,500 for 152×168cm scale positions competitively within Australian emerging abstract painters, while the MCA platform provides validation typically reserved for more established practitioners. 10 metre commissioned work installed permanently at Her Bar Melbourne (2021) demonstrates capacity for large-scale architectural projects. Published critical attention includes Artist Profile Magazine, Art Collector Magazine, Art Almanac, ABC Radio National, Reflektor Magazine, establishing press footprint unusual for career stage.

Collection Rationale

Strategic acquisition for collectors building positions in Australian women abstractionists before major international visibility. MCA inclusion in "Intelligence of Painting" alongside established figures (Jenny Watson, Angela Brennan) positions Butt within lineage of Australian gestural abstraction while Porthmeor Studios residency connects practice to St Ives modernist tradition. Pricing offers accessible entry before institutional momentum drives the market upward, comparable trajectories saw similar Australian abstractionists appreciate significantly after major museum validation. Natural adjacencies to collectors holding Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner. The work demonstrates sophisticated material intelligence and art-historical literacy, rare in post-emerging practice, suggesting sustained conceptual development ahead.