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Artist Paul Koh Paul is a self-taught artist and works with acrylic paints as the preferred medium. His colours are bright and lucid, and the paint dense (he hardly adds any water). Be it his beloved catmasutra collections, or his other works, Paul never fails to imbue them with a sense of playful optimism and mysticism. Ever since he was a child, Paul has been illustrating and drawing. Growing up with cats also means that his two passions are inextricably linked. He experimented with different forms of expressions (from portraiture and figurative to pop and abstract) before finding his element in his "Catmasutra" series, which inevitably continues the catty tales of his cats, Halo and Angel. His approach to art resembles the personality of the cat - playful, curious, unpredictable and quirky. Paul graduated with honors in Mass Communication and Psychology. He won a "distinction" in the interactive media category of the Singapore Design Award 2000 for Sony's Planet MG Website. He also won third prize for his short story "Quivering" at biannual SPH-NAC Short Story Writing Competition, The Golden Point Award 1999.
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| Catmasutra paulMysh's Catmasutra is the product of the artists' unwavering adoration and admiration for these half-wild, self-assured hedonistic creatures. Each of Paul's works has Halo or Angel as the motif that binds his paintings in a series that is nostalgic and familiar, transcending the mundane to the special, be it in a kopitiam, a household kitchen, or a play on both popular (Andy Warhol's Campbell soup, Absolut Voldka bottles) and high culture (Van Goth's Sunflowers, Monet's Japanese Garden). Paul's cats are to him, a symbolic way of life. His obsessive passion for the species is not nurtured or learnt but spontaneous. He believes that cats are without a doubt, the domestic creature most adapted to modern times. Wherever they are, they are capable of being happy and free-spirited. Catmasutra in essence, encapsulates the irreverence and bold spirit of the inimitable artist and his cats. |