Anne Samat

Anne Samat (b. 1973, Malaysia) lives and works in Kuala Lumpur and New York. Samat employs the Southeast Asian art of Pua Kumbu weaving and adds humble goods from 99 cent stores to construct brightly colored, gorgeous, totemic works. They resonate from deeply personal issues: family and identity, and speak of love, individuality, and liberation. For Samat, it is paramount to embody what one feels to be from within – without fear, without coercion. Her works often have clear gender assignments, but even when this can be discerned it often feels irrelevant in light of the greater presence of the sculptures. Brightly colored and heavily adorned with details, each one resonates as an avatar.

In these most recent works, Anne Samat has infused her familial history into woven structures and symbols. The pieces embody personal stories; each sculpture is a totem to a different family member with the figures of a mother and a daughter appearing in these latest works. Handmade ropes cascade from armatures of radiating garden rakes. Found objects abound, simultaneously cultural, formal and figurative. A pair of plastic funnels double as breasts, forks and spoons serve as a warp, and cassette tapes hang from chain-like 80s-era neckpieces. Everyday trinkets and cultural markers blend seamlessly with Samat’s intricate weavings to produce a family mythology that transcends time and geography.

Samat’s most recent museum exhibitions include solo shows at MASS MoCA; the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech University; the University of Wyoming Art Museum; and a group show at the ArtScience Museum Singapore. In 2022, her work was prominently featured in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India. In 2020, she took part in the Asia Society Triennial in New York, and in 2019 she exhibited at the Cheongju Craft Biennale in South Korea; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taiwan and held a residency at the Hudson Valley MoCA. Prior to that, her work was shown at the Yokohama Triennale in Japan (2017). Her work is currently presented at the 2024 Sydney Biennale and will show at the IOTA – Indian Ocean Craft Triennial – in Perth, Australia later this year. Her work is in various private and public collections worldwide including The Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Singapore; KADIST Art Collection, Paris, France and San Francisco, CA; Hudson Valley MOCA, Peekskill, NY, amongst others.