PHOEBE UNWIN – PREGNANT LANDSCAPE

Posted on 2018-04-30

The title of Phoebe Unwin’s next show Pregnant Landscape simultaneously invokes the traditions of portraiture and landscape painting. It also imbues the idea of a landscape with a sense of the bodily, as pregnancy suggests gestation and fecundity. Unwin does not work from pre-existing images or photographs, and the frenetic circulation of visual materials in 2.0 culture has no direct impact on her practice. Instead she makes paintings. In this case, a series of oil paintings that, as objects in themselves, conjure an image somewhere between the surface of the painting and the viewer’s observation of it. She describes her way of working as a kind of abstraction in reverse; rather than a drawing away from the observed world and a distillation of its actuality, it is more a case of ‘the abstract triggering the figurative.’ Yet it is not so much a tension between the ideas of abstraction and figuration, or a revision of the modernist prioritisation of form, but the objectification of the painting as a ‘thing-in-itself’ that can surprise, seduce and connect with the individual viewer to create novel content and unique meaning.

Opposite – Whisper, 2018

Exhibition runs through to May 26th, 2018

AMANDA WILKINSON
1st Floor, 18 Brewer Street
W1F 0SH
London

amandawilkinsongallery.com

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HEATHER COOK – 1D 5L 2D 6L 3D 7L 4D 8L 5D 1L 6D 2L 7D

Posted on 2018-04-30

The show consists of two interrelated series of woven works, each following Cook’s continued investigation of the process of the construction of an image. In the first two rooms there is a series of works known as Shadow Weaves, and in the last room, Weaving Drafts, works that depict the graphic representations of the weaving programs for the Shadow Weaves themselves.
The title of the show 1D 5L 2D 6L 3D 7L 4D 8L 5D 1L 6D 2L 7D 3L 8D 4L, is a technical set of directions for footpedal strokes on a jack loom used to make the series of works in the show known as Shadow Weaves. Cook has been investigating this traditional pattern since 2012. The name shadow weave has a double meaning in its historic usage: First, the word shadow is used to reflect a narrative account of the temporal aspect of the process, one thing after another, as the dark thread literally follows the lighter thread through the loom in the sequence of the pattern. Second, that the effect of the final result is a visual likeness of raised and recessed planes. So the singular name long used for a very traditional pattern has already within it a common space where the act of making the object and its optical effect come together as the same.

Opposite – Fluorescent Orange and Navy Blue Shadow Weaving Draft, 2018

Exhibition runs through to June 16th, 2018

Praz-Delavallade
6150 Wilshire Blvd
CA 90048 Los Angeles
USA

www.praz-delavallade.com

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DANIEL ARSHAM – CHARACTER STUDY

Posted on 2018-04-23

This show presents new work that explores the artist’s relationship to color and light, as well as his interest in cycles and patterns as they relate to time, matter, and pop-culture.

In the first part of the exhibition, iconic cartoon characters cast from vintage patches, enlarged to a fantastical scale, appear familiar and playful as they hang throughout the gallery. Some of these appropriated pop-images, such as Bart Simpson, Bugs Bunny, and Felix the Cat, are from of the artist’s own childhood collection of patches that covered the Jansport backpack he owned during his school years in the 90s.

These oversized patch works are cast using a plaster material, however, the expected colors scheme was not used. Instead, the pieces are pure white, half painted in a chiaroscuro style. This technique uses a gradual field of color to imply a shadow across the work, bringing attention to the texture and intricate detail of the embroidery. The pigment is dusted over the surface, allowing gravity to determine where the color lands. Arsham states: “When I began delving into the use of color, my colorblindness was a factor. I compensated for my lack of understanding the universe of color by viewing my surroundings in terms of light and shadows. This color chiaroscuro technique is an exploration of that.”

Exhibition runs through to June 9th, 2018

Morán Morán Gallery
937 N. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles
CA 90069

moranmorangallery.com

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ALESSANDRO PESSOLI – LIKE A FREE LIFE

Posted on 2018-04-23

Pessoli’s work offers a fusion of sense and nonsense, blending private and public. Fed by references to popular culture, cinema and theatre, religiousimagery merges with allusions to art history, from the Italian Renaissance to American Pop Art. Typical of Pessoli are his investigations of how personal histories intertwine with larger historical narratives. With this new body of work Pessoli continues to explore both his interior life and the physical reality of our world, and how they subsequently interact on the canvas.
As the paintings show, this approach results in human figures and animals being transfixed by a precipitate of anatomical parts such as eyes, mouths, penises and objects like guns, fruit, ice cream and emoji. Even minutely copied drawings of his children find their way on to the paintings. In one painting, a crowned chicken carries a slice of pizza on its back, its neck pierced by a banana, while the artist’s portrait and a popsicle appear among its feathers. This abundant diversity is exemplified by the techniques used: oil paint, silkscreen, stencils and spray paint intermingle to describe details in a realistic manner or to dissolve them into abstraction.

Opposite – Fired Figures, 2018

Exhibition runs through to April 28th, 2018

Xavier Hufkens
107 rue St-Georges | St-Jorisstraat
B – 1050 Brussels
Belgium

www.xavierhufkens.com

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CARROLL DUNHAM

Posted on 2018-04-23

This show features large-scale paintings from the artist’s Wrestlers series, which demonstrate Dunham’s continued exploration of and fascination with interpretations of the nude body with particular attention to the male form. Made over the last year, these paintings reflect a clear new direction for the artist through the lens of the distinctive approach to painting that Dunham has employed and tinkered with throughout his career. Using the visual language of mythological depictions of wrestling, mined from art historical
sources and his own memory, these paintings propose new through lines in Dunham’s practice that are both formal and autobiographical in nature.
Providing male counterparts to the female figures Dunham has continuously returned to, the wrestlers introduce a variety of visceral and psychological narratives that incorporate an amalgam of recurring themes prevalent throughout his oeuvre, namely playfulness, violence, and sexuality. Set in vibrant and abstracted landscapes adorned with trees, flowers, birds, and dogs, the male protagonists brutally assault one another, gently hold each other, or lie lifeless on the rugged terrain. Each composition provides a unique insight into the physical and mental struggles among these competing figures, either through straightforward scenes of men attacking each other, or through the documentation of defeated men left for dead. This psychology is intensified through the formal framing of the men within the rectangular bounds of the canvas, as well as through the repeated insertion of jet black birds that witness the violent matches and aftermath of each battle, predatorily looming over the turbulent scenes.

Opposite – Any Day, 2017

Exhibition runs through to June 16th, 2018

Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th Street
NY-10011 New York
USA

gladstonegallery.com

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BERTRAND LAVIER – HIER, OGGI

Posted on 2018-04-16

Bertrand Lavier is renowned in the realm of contemporary art for his reflections on abstract painting and sculpture. Through light-hearted humour and sarcasm Lavier has reworked the notion of the canvas and moreover of the art work in general via juxtapositions and hybridizations, creations that are generated by his thoughts on consumerism and authorship, which are rooted in his first handed experience of the tumultuous riots in Paris in 1968.
Gesture is key in Bertrand Lavier’s oeuvre, where the pictorial element defines the content and the context. The exhibition Hier, Oggi is structured as a retrospective – deliberately incomplete and fragmentary – where the artist has selected a number of works from different periods of career, focusing on the period that goes from 1983 to today. Mirrors and canvases specifically made for the exhibition are shown alongside works from the early eighties.

Opposite – SMEG, 2002

Exhibition runs through to June 23rd, 2018

Massimo De Carlo
Ventura: Via Giovanni Ventura 5
20134 Milan
Italy

www.massimodecarlo.com

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