Artist’s Statement
Through a modern approach to printmaking, I make monotypes, prints, installations, artist books, paper clothing, and paintings that play with improvisation and superimposition in their creation. My work draws on engraving and etching techniques, and uses color that appears in different halftones, shades, and densities. Color and textiles have always had important roles in my work because they create impressions of light, people, and pigment.
I interpret and interact with the world around me through a well-honed visual language that incorporates all the continents, histories, and cultures I’ve experienced.
My artwork explores themes of identity, history, humanity, of progress and of decay and deterioration – transmuting it all into beauty, serenity, story, and hue. Both the complexity and the element of chance of the techniques and process I use; echo the themes she strives to express.
Agathe Bouton - 2024
Biography
Agathe Bouton is a French artist living and working in the Philadelphia area whose boundary-pushing printmaking and paper works exhibit influence from living and working in international cities across the globe. Bouton earned her BFA in Painting and Printmaking and her MFA in Arts and Textile Design from the prestigious ESSAA Duperré in Paris, France. Since leaving Paris 19 years ago, Bouton has lived and exhibited her work internationally in Paris (France), London (UK), Philadelphia & New York (USA), Rangoon (Burma/Myanmar), Dakar (Senegal) and Istanbul (Turkey). She has had solo exhibitions at the Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain in Dakar, Senegal; Rathaus House in Waldbrol, Germany; Centre d’Arts Plastiques Albert Chanot in Clamart and Galerie Martine Namy-Caulier in Paris, France; Galerie Od’A in Istanbul, Turkey; River Gallery in Yangon, Burma/Myanmar; the Bettie Morton Gallery in London, UK and Stanek Gallery in Philadelphia.
Bouton has received numerous awards in France and the United States for her accomplished printmaking including the Pierre Laurent First Prize in 2007 in Albi, being named a finalist in the Prix GRAV’X in 1999, and 2005 in Paris, France. In 2022 she received the Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, USA, and the Women United Art Movement in Printmaking. In 2023 she’s a finalist of the 98th Annual International Competitions of The Print Center in Philadelphia. Since moving to the U.S., she has exhibited extensively in Philadelphia and New York. Additionally, Bouton’s work is in the collections of French institutions including: the Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes; L’Inventaire, Artothèque du Nord Pas de Calais; and the Musée Français de la carte à jouer; as well as American public collections, for example: the Print and Pictures Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Swarthmore College Library.