On 30 November and 1 December, Phillips will present its Fall Auctions of 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design in Hong Kong in association with Yongle auction. The Day Sale on 30 November and the Evening Sale on 1 December bring together a diverse curation of works by post-war masters, highly sought-after contemporary names, as well as ultra-contemporary artists. Among them are a number of extraordinary works by female artists from various cultures, backgrounds and eras, including Yayoi Kusama, Lucy Bull, Caroline Walker, Christina Quarles, Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Ewa Juskiewicz, Hulda Guzmán, Kristy Chan, Ana Benaroya, and more.
Dedicated to introducing some of the world’s most talented contemporary artists to Asia’s auction market, Phillips is presenting a range of works of women artists. Over the last few years, Phillips Hong Kong has been repeatedly achieving record auction results for female artists, notably Lucy Bull, Emily Mae Smith, Jadé Fadojutimi, Loie Hollowell, Ayako Rokkaku, Genieve Figgis, and more. This season, Phillips Hong Kong continues to discover and spotlight works by women artists from around the world in their Hong Kong sales.
LARRY’S LIST has highlighted 8 lots by outstanding female artists, under the themes of abstraction, the female form, and pop culture — artworks and talents that are worth recognition and appreciation by more art collectors.
Abstraction
Giving Tree, 2019
oil on linen
152.4 x 122 cm. (60 x 48 in.)
Lot 4, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Estimate
HK$ 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 / US$ 128,000 – 192,000
Otherworldly and fantastical, Bull’s abstract works play with dynamic texture, weight, and space, creating canvases that overflow with detail, forming an entrancing viewing experience that titillates the senses. Alluding to a poignant children’s tale of the same title, Giving Tree emits an ethereal glow from within, its neon colours resplendent in contrast with deeper shades of pine greens and Prussian blues.
Born in 1990 in New York, Lucy Bull received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012 and has gained major traction since her auction debut in May 2022.
What’s the Use in Yearning, 2021
acrylic, oil and Swarovski crystals on canvas
diptych each canvas 200 x 150 cm. (78 3/4 x 59 in.)
overall 200 x 300 cm. (78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in.)
Lot 1, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Estimate
HK$ 250,000 – 350,000 / US$ 32,100 – 44,900
Marking the artist’s auction debut in Asia, this work presents vibrant, emotive, whirling forms of colour. Drawing from her mixed Caribbean and British lineage for inspiration, Yearwood-Dan’s works are informed by and derived from a wide range of cultural signifiers. Yearwood-Dan’s work moves between the personal and the political, combining reflections on class, race, and gender politics with more personal feelings related to loss and love.
Yearwood-Dan has been celebrated with several solo exhibitions between New York and London, such as at Tiwani Contemporary (2022 and 2019), at Marianne Boesky Gallery (2021), and at The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation (2019).
The female form
Split Orbs in gray-brown, yellow, purple and carmine, 2021
oil, acrylic and high-density foam on linen mounted on panel
122.5 x 91.8 cm. (48 1/4 x 36 1/8 in.)
Lot 7, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Estimate
HK$ 4,000,000 – 6,000,000 / US$ 513,000 – 769,000
A part of a nine-canvas series that directly references the birth of her second child, “Split Orbs in gray-brown, yellow, purple and carmine” visually abstracts the physical pain of labour. The orbs seem to pulsate with palpable rhythm as they expand and quiver under the blunt force of a sharp cut down the midline, presenting to us an almost psychedelic and transcendental viewing experience. Hollowell mediates the carnal process of childbirth through colour, line and form, creating canvases that share resemblances with the pregnant female body.
Hollowell’s “Spilt Orbs” series, including the current work, was exhibited at König Galerie, Berlin in “Loie Hollowell: Sacred Contract” in 2021.
The Lovers 2, 2015
Japanese paper collage, watercolour and Swarovski rhinestones on canvas
182.5 x 183 cm. (71 7/8 x 72 in.)
Lot 3, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Estimate
HK$ 4,000,000 – 6,000,000 / US$ 513,000 – 769,000
María Berrío is a Colombian-born artist now living and working in New York, who produces highly intricate, decorative works where women take center-stage within imagined landscapes that are often populated by fantastical creatures.
Berrío’s paintings unravel the artist’s expansive imagination that bristles with both self-expression and self-determination, that cuts through the fossilized legacy of the male gaze that permits her feminine totems to flourish. “The Lovers 2” is an accomplished product of this desire to define female autonomy, and demonstrates a turn to the introspective — one made disarming by the subject’s inscrutable stare.
Carbonara Text, 2018
acrylic and spray paint on canvas
150.2 x 120.3 cm. (59 1/8 x 47 3/8 in.)
Lot 129, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale
Estimate
HK$ 300,000 – 500,000 / US$ 38,500 – 64,100
Lively and bodacious, the exaggerated figures that populate Spanish artist Cristina BanBan’s portraits are firmly centred on the female form. “Carbonara Text” showcases BanBan’s interest in anime and expressionist aesthetics: in hues of beige and pink outlined by defining black lines, the painting’s protagonist is depicted with voluptuous arms and thighs that balance out her daintier face with rosebud lips. Blocks of blue, turquoise and pink surround her body, blending into both her clothes and the table in the foreground — figurative elements merge with subtle abstraction, recalling Willem de Kooning and Cecily Brown.
Origins Of The World, 2019
spray paint, acrylic and oil on canvas
120.4 x 100.2 cm. (47 3/8 x 39 1/2 in.)
Lot 128, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale
Estimate
HK$ 120,000 – 160,000 / US$15,400 – 20,500
Born in New York in 1986, Ana Benaroya is known for her powerful portraits of dominant and assertive women in eye-popping Fauvist tones. Resisting the traditional standards of femininity in art history and presenting a new way of looking at women in art, “Origins of the World” revisions Gustave Courbet’s painting “The Origin of the World” (1866). In Benaroya’s version, however, the female figure is no longer faceless and passively reclining away from the viewer. She stands tall, towering directly over the viewer with a coy smile visible on her face. This work marks the artist’s debut at auction in Asia.
Pop culture
Phone Home, 2019
acrylic and spray paint on canvas
152 x 121 cm. (59 7/8 x 47 5/8 in.)
Lot 130, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale
Estimate
HK$ 350,000 – 550,000 / US$ 44,900 – 70,500
“Phone Home” is a striking example of Missouri-born, Brooklyn-based artist Katherine Bernhardt’s electric paintings that explore the mundane iconography of contemporary culture. Here, the lovable, fictional alien, universally known as ‘E.T.’, is depicted with a finger pointed to space, referencing Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film’s most iconic scene. Rendered in expressive acrylic and spray paint on canvas, the protagonist is composed of vibrant blue outlined in green, with neon orange, yellow and pink thrown into the mix. Slap-dash strokes of colour and form jostle for space across the work, perfectly encapsulating Bernhardt’s gestural approach.
A Younger, Smaller Flame, 2014
acrylic on canvas
76.2 x 91.4 cm (30 x 35 7/8 in.)
Lot 131, Phillips in Association with Yongle 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale
Estimate
HK$ 300,000 – 500,000 / US$ 38,500 – 64,100
This work encapsulates the uncanny visual realm of Italian American artist Jamian Juliano-Villani. The ambiguous creature in this painting resembles a fox, an animal that occasionally features in the artist’s psychedelic dreamscapes. She manipulates the generic version of a cartoon fox as if incorporating “random error” to evoke an uncomfortable response from the viewer, but that makes one can’t stop looking at it.
To create her surreal paintings that are packed with visual reference, Juliano-Villani turns to her vast bank of television stills, stock photos, fragments of historical artworks, memes, and personal photography archive.
