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JUNGLE FEVER AT BORNEO JAZZ FESTIVAL 2019

French artist Marie Dargent presents her first exhibition in Sarawak as part of the 2019 Borneo Jazz Festival, on display at the Bungalow in Coco Cabana, Marina Bay Miri from 19-21 July, open to the public each day from 10.00am-6.00pm.

‘Jungle Fever’ is the title of a new series of works that Marie Dargent has been working on for the last 12 months, comprising of 65 loose-hanging pieces of cloth that have been painted with striking acrylic colours using stencilled cut-outs that she had made of jungle motifs. These long, narrow strips of antique cotton cloth are over a hundred years old, taken from the Dargent family collection, originally made by her seamstress great-grandmother.

Well-known for her stone-print lithographs and watercolours, Marie has spent the last year working in her Paris atelier on a radically different theme and work method, inspired by the vivid tropical vegetation of Malaysia’s rainforest. Working from memories of her many travels through Malaysia’s jungles as well as recent images captured by John Brunton’s photographs on a journey around the Mulu caves that was organised by Sarawak Tourism, her exhibition transports the viewer into the enclosed depths of the rainforest, at once realist and figurative, yet also abstract, intriguing and seductive.

Standing in front of the artworks, the viewer can absorb the history and heritage of France impregnated on this century-old cloth, transformed by the artist by using distinctive designs and colours that vividly interpret Sarawak’s million year old jungle, transporting Europe to the rainforest heart of South East Asia.

The artist is based today in Paris and Venice, but has lived and travelled widely in Malaysia, regularly exhibiting her work in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, while her watercolour paintings of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah illustrate the book “Malaysian Contrasts” (Federal Publications).

The artist will be present throughout the exhibition.

For media enquiries / interview requests, please email: [email protected]

Further background on the artist on her website www.mariedargent.com