A joint initiative between Art Basel and BMW, the BMW Art Journey gives an emerging artist the oppourtunity to develop new ideas and give focus and free reign to a journey of creativity. The inaugural winner in 2015 was Samson Young whose project “For Whom The Bell Tolls” explored the sound of a bell through history and location.
The three artist selected for the short list in Hong Kong are:
Abigail Reynolds: based in Cornwall, United Kingdom, Abigail Reynolds studied English Literature at Oxford University before pursuing Fine Art at Goldsmiths University. Her interest in books prompts her collages, sculptures, films and most recently, printmaking. The ideas driving Reynold’s work are based on reportage photography books, her interest in networks of association and how our sense of time is affected by technology. She has exhibited at art institutions and galleries in London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Eindhoven. In her presentation at Art Basel in Hong Kong, Reynolds incorporates a large-scale sculpture which will print her sourced images onto glass for the first time.
Newsha Tavakolian: born in 1981, Newsha is a Tehran based photo-journalist and artist. Early in her career she produced photo documentaries in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan and Yemen and gained international recognition with work published in magazines and newspapers such as Time, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and the New York Times. Tavakolian’s exhibitions include Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, Aaran Gallery, Tehran, and Otto Gallery, Florence. In her photography installation for Art Basel in Hong Kong 2016 she documents the lives of nine Teheran residents combining wall size scenery with a large video screen and several photographs of varying sizes into an installation drawn from her forthcoming exhibition and book ‘Blank pages of an Iranian photo album’
Alvin Zafra: born in 1978 in Quezon City, Philippines, Alvin graduated from the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in 2000 and won the Dominador Castaneda Award for Visual Essay. He’s exhibited at West Gallery, Quezon City, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. In his exhibition at Art Basel in Hong Kong, Zafra explores two different cities and their architectures. The drawings presented are based on photographs he took in the National Capital Region of the Philippines and in Hanover, Germany.