Through his gallery’s newly established C/discoveries initiative, Kevin Cuturi hopes to give aspiring home-grown artists a chance at pursuing a career in the visual arts
It is tough to be a full-time artist, gallerist Kevin Cuturi notes, especially in Singapore where talents struggle with high material costs and lack of gallery representation, while the art market is facing dwindling collector support. The French founder of Cuturi Gallery (formerly known as Mazel Galerie, until he recently cut ties with the Brussels-based gallery to gain more autonomy over his programmes) knows this only too well, having been based in Singapore for the past four years.
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To Cuturi, artistic diversity and inclusivity is fundamental in furthering the local visual arts scene. This is why he makes it a point to showcase a mix of high-quality works from established as well as aspiring artists. Most recently, Cuturi Gallery presented a solo exhibition of world‑renowned French experimental artist Lionel Sabatté’s works, alongside its first-ever C/discoveries exhibition, Stages and Mirrors.
The non-profit C/discoveries initiative seeks to empower under‑represented and aspiring artists, and the inaugural exhibition featured five paintings by two 22-year‑old graduates of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts—Singaporean Aisha Rosli and Indonesian Yunita Rebekah—who were personally hand-picked by Cuturi. “It was incredibly refreshing to see their art,” he explains. “They provide a deeper exploration of the human reflection—and I like that very much.”
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While Sabatté’s works understandably caught the eye of Cuturi’s high-profile clientele, the works of the C/discoveries artists were sold out within three days of the exhibition’s opening. Nurturing home-grown artistic talents is at the core of the C/discoveries initiative. Even though the artists are not contractually bound to the gallery, they get 80 per cent of the proceeds from every artwork sold, while the remaining goes towards funding future artists. This way, it relieves aspiring artists from the financial anxieties that may hinder their creative expression, and also kick‑start a culture of mutual support.