Bio
Kenny Batu is a painter and graphic designer based in Providence, Rhode Island. His geometric abstract paintings are "visual diary entries" that deconstruct contextual spaces, emotions, and memories into colorful, geometric compositions.
As a native of Taiwan, Kenny spent his adolescence in Switzerland and later made London his home, where he obtained his BA in Illustration from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. After a short spell in Istanbul, he moved to NYC in 2013, where he received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts and the Park Family Foundation Scholarship. Kenny has exhibited in London and NYC.
Artist Statement
I'm working on a series of paintings that are abstract interpretations of feelings. I'm aiming to decontextualize the subject matter by reconfiguring the method of artistic narrative and breaking down an emotional circumstance through a systematic, primitive visual communication framework.
Typically, the audience feels the emotion through the lens of the artist. And how we perceive the work is often heavily influenced by the context of the subject presented to us. Although we all have a similar concept of a bouquet, what we feel about the specific arrangement could differ quite a bit through different social standing, environment, education, background, family structure, and the language we think in—even in our current homogenized contemporary culture. So how each individual understands the visual information in front of us can vary quite a bit through the nuance of our differences, what makes each of us special. As intuitive as it has been, I think of it as playing the telephone game with the audience.
Essentially, I want to decontextualize my work as much as possible. When you think about binary code, it’s basically the breaking down of complex information into its simplest form. And that’s what I’m trying to do with this series. I’m breaking down an emotion, which is difficult to fully describe, into simple components: color, shapes, composition,
and format.
So the audience sees how I feel and not how I see. Of course, there will still be a range of interpretations, but the context has been completely removed. Without me telling you that this painting was based on a bouquet of flowers, you would have no clue. But hopefully, when you see it, you can get a sense of what I was feeling.