MIRCEA SUCIU – HOTEL EMPATHY

Posted on 2019-04-01

Suciu not only uses a wide range of graphic techniques to compose images, but he also resorts to various types of images. He often recycles images that are part of our collective memory or that seem familiar, ranging from a Campbell soup can to an identifiable character of a baroque painting. Through this seemingly eclectic choice of imagery he strives for iconicity in a world that is constantly being overwhelmed by all sorts of images. Suciu is interested in the mechanisms behind an image – how the impact can be immediate and how an image can be deceiving or rather emancipating. By working in series, he tries to exhaust certain motifs and to reach the essence of an image. The images could be seen as echoes that become more real through repetition, making it harder for one to escape them.

Opposite – Bazaar (2), 2018 – 2019

Exhibition runs through to April 27th, 2019

Zeno X Gallery
Godtsstraat 15
2140 Antwerp
Belgium

www.zeno-x.com

  

SAM FALLS

Posted on 2019-04-01

Concerned with the intimacy of time, the illustration of place, and exploration of mortality, Sam Falls has created his own formal language by intertwining photography’s core parameters of time and exposure with nature and her elements. Working largely outdoors with vernacular materials and nature as a site-specific subject, Falls abandons mechanical reproduction in favor of a more symbiotic relationship between subject and object. In doing so, he bridges the gap between photography, sculpture, and painting, as well as the divide between artist, object, and viewer. In these new works, created especially for the show, he uses this language to conceive a unique space between photographic fidelity to a subject and painting’s intimate interpretation. At the same time, the paintings continue to stay true to a specific environment by utilizing local plants.

Opposite – Untitled (Adult), 2018

Exhibition runs through to May 18th, 2019

Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Maag Areal Zahnradstrasse 21,
CH-8005 Zürich
Switzerland

www.presenhuber.com

  

CATHERINE BIOCCA – COMPLEXITY COST

Posted on 2019-03-25

Catherine Biocca lives and works in Berlin. Selected solo exhibitions include ‘Infinity Pool’ at Polansky Gallery, Prague (2019); ‘Ancient Workers’ at Kunstfort Vijfhuizen; ‘Credit Card’ at VHDG, Leeuwarden; ‘PREMIUM CLIENT’ at PSM Gallery, Berlin (2018); ‘Bonsai Feeling’ at Kunstverein Nürnberg and ‘SS SAD SYMPHONY’ at Frutta, Rome (2017). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at LOK Kunstmuseum St Gallen (2019), Bank Space Gallery, London (2017), GAK Bremen (2017), and the 3rd Animation Biennial Shenzhen (2016).

Opposite – Big Times II, 2019

Exhibition runs through to May 18th, 2019

Greengrassi
1a Kempsford Road
SE11 4NU
London

www.greengrassi.com

  

JAN DE MAESSCHALCK – FROM NOW ON

Posted on 2019-03-25

De Maesschalck draws inspiration from his personal image archive: a collection of files with his own photos that can lead to new works. He also clips illustrations that intrigue him from magazines and newspapers. His own sketches and collages can also form the basis for new work. He deliberately
seeks accidental developments that emerge during the painting process. He describes them as alert phases that can end well or badly. De Maesschalck works in daylight; that is why the falling of the dusk, with its changing light, is an important motif in his oeuvre.

Opposite – Squeaky Sand #5, 2019

Exhibition runs through to April 27th, 2019

Zeno X Gallery
Godtsstraat 15
2140 Antwerp
Belgium

www.zeno-x.com

  

JENNIFER GUIDI – ECLIPSE

Posted on 2019-03-25

Contrast—that necessary component in dualism and its paradoxical opposite, nondualism—is thematically central to this exhibition. Drawing on Palazzo Belgioioso’s Neoclassical architecture that locates harmony between grandiose, decadent scale and simplified geometric forms after Vitruvius’ principles of symmetry (proportion idealized through firmitas (strength), utilitas (functionality), and venustas (beauty)), Guidi’s paintings symbolically riff on emblems in the building’s details. For example, the ceiling’s plaster applique bust of Venus, goddess of love, and the terrazzo floor’s 8-point star, denoting a mandalic compass linking heaven to earth, inspired Guidi to step up her compositional calibrations of chance, intuitive growth, and engineering with esoteric investigations of archetypes like serpent and pyramid. Her rainbow-spined snake paintings are visual manifestations of raw kundalini energy moving through chakras, uncoiling into third eye enlightenment through the serpent’s forehead. In her exhibition’s cosmogony, snake represent rebirth, transformation, and eternal renewal—apt for a Spring opening date—while pyramids might spark reference to the Ancient Egyptian architectural practice of erecting triangular bridges between living and dead to aid in afterlife navigation, or, Neoplatonic visions of a pyramidal world order.

Opposite – Heart Chakra (Yellow and Light Green #1PT, Green Sand SF #1PT,Lavender Ground), 2019

Exhibition runs through to May 18th, 2019

Massimo De Carlo
Piazza Belgioioso 2
20121 Milan

www.massimodecarlo.com

  

LEE MULLICAN – COSMIC THEATER

Posted on 2019-03-18

The exhibition Lee Mullican: Cosmic Theater explores the late artist’s sustained interest in the universe as source material for his creative voice. Mullican was a seeker and tirelessly pursued a form of abstraction that connected nature and spirituality. Pulling from a wide range of influences he created works that found new meanings through formal explorations of composition, color, and mark making. In his conversation with Joanne Phillips from 1976, he recalled the push and pull between abstraction in the purest sense and what he explained as his “need for some kind of image.” Through a close examination of his paintings and drawings we begin to understand that these patterns, shapes, and figure-like forms reflect his deep and abiding interest in the cosmos. Mullican’s enduring quest was to create through his art a new perspective.

Opposite – Oblique of Agawam, 1950

Exhibition runs through to April 20th, 2019

James Cohan Gallery
533 W. 26 Street
NY 10001
New York

www.jamescohan.com