Art Brussels 2024
25 – 28 April
Booth 5D-34
Brussels Expo
André Romão
Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain
Carlos Bunga
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros
Daniel Gustav Cramer
Gabriela Albergaria
Ignasi Aballí
Susanne S. D. Themlitz
John Wood and Paul Harrison
At Art Brussels 2024, GALERIA VERA CORTÊS unveils a selection of works by nine artists, inviting audiences to delve into their creative experiences and recent projects. The booth layout allows for a fluid dialogue between the varying languages of each artist.
ANDRÉ ROMÃO
André Romão (1984, Lisbon) explores ideas of transformation, mutation, and fluidity primarily through sculpture and poetry, shaping his work into a dynamic exploration of these concepts.
Taking emotion and intuition as building blocks, his dream-like figures and landscapes often occupy a blurry field between the literary and the natural realms.
Romão was the recipient of the Prémio EDP Novos Artistas in 2007 and BES Revelação in 2013. He was a resident artist at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2010), MACRO, Rome (2014) and Gasworks, London (2020), among others.
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André Romão, Stormy Night, 2024. Gouache, watercolor and acrylic medium on wood, tree branch, 90 x 110 x 40 cm. Unique
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These works continue the exploration in the field of sculpture of notions of horizontality, fluidity and metamorphoses. Lately, complementary ideas of vitalism and melancholy also come into play to explore flow and animation.
Dancer, a found wooden sculpture is animated by the presence of bells, as if micro vibrations emanating from the sculpture’s decay would make the bells sound. Here, time is extended, in this figure wanting to return to its wooden condition.
André Romão, Dancer, 2024. Sculptural fragment (wood with traces of polychromy, France, 1600’s), bells (alloy, central Europe, 1900’s). 60 x 40 x 30. Unique
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André Romão, The Rings of Saturn, 2024. Sculptural fragment (plaster, France, 1960’s), pearls, 30 x 19 x 18 cm. Unique
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The rings of Saturn inject subjectivity and emotional depth into a found plaster cast where pearls take the place of tears, thus acknowledging the tension between the inside and outside, palpable and precious.
André Romão, Trunk, 2023. Bronze.
27 x 12 x 15 cm. Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
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Trunk, a bronze cast, also presents itself as a Hybrid object, both human and vegetable. An object where sap and blood coincide in their aliveness and decay.
Endless winter gathers a group of flower bulbs in a box cast in bronze, the lack of humidity and light prevents the bulbs to flowers, keeping them in a state-only field with potential energy, trapped in an endless winter, dormant. The contrast of the heavy coldness of the bronze box and the sleeping fragility of the bulbs also contributes to the tense presence of the work.
André Romão, Endless winter, 2023. Bronze, flower bulbs. 11 x 21 x 36 cm. Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP
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Exhibition view: Calor, André Romão, Serralves Museum. 17 November 2023 – 2 June, 2024. © Filipe Braga
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Visit the Online Viewing Room of “Calor”, André Romão’s solo exhibition at the Serralves Museum, curated by Inês Grosso and on view until 2 June.
ANGELA DETANICO / RAFAEL LAIN
Angela Detanico (1974) and Rafael Lain (1973) are a duo of Brazilian artists living and working in Paris. Respectively a linguist and a typographer, working within the themes of writing, reading and translation, from a media to another or from a code to another. Interested in the limits of the representation of time and space, the artists develop works crossing poetry, sound and image.
Their work has been shown in different countries and venues such as Palais de Tokyo and Grand Palais, (France); Moderna Museet (Sweden); CCS Bard Hessel Museum (USA); Mudam (Luxemburg); National Museum of Contemporary Art (Greece); ICC (Japan); Laboratorio de Arte Alameda (Mexico); Malba (Argentina); and Henry Moore Institute (England).
They took part in several international exhibitions, namely the 3rd Media City Seoul, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2006, 10th Bienal de la Havana and the 26th, 27th and 28th São Paulo Biennials.
They are nominated artists for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024.
Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain, Green (Cantos), 2023. Painted wood, 5 elements. 120 x 120 x 3,5. Unique
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Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain, Red (Cantos), 2023. Painted wood, three elements. 110 x 110 x 3,5 cm. Unique
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Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain, Blue (Cantos), 2023. Painted wood, 4 elements. 125 x 120 x 3,5 cm. Unique
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The words for each colour (green, red and blue) is composed in a writing system that correlates the letters of the alphabet to wood bar elements arranged in corners. The lengths of the bars define the letters following the alphabet as a scale: the smallest corner is equivalent to “A” and the biggest to “Z”. The letters/corners are composed to create words/objects related to their meanings.
A horizon drawn by the lines of a book with the word horizon in it.
Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain,
Night and Day, Virginia Woolf, 2023.
Print on Munken 120gr, Olin crème.
10 pages (19,5 x 12,4 cm) Total: 22 x 130 cm.
Unique
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Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain, Palavras Compostas (sans/avec), 2024. Variable dimensions. Unique
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Angela Detanico / Rafael Lain, Espoir, 2010-2022. Cut-out aluminium, bas-relief engraving. 179 x 32 cm. Unique
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Rulers with the printed alphabet are arranged out of alignment, aligning the letters that form the word “espoir” (French word for hope).
CARLOS BUNGA
Carlos Bunga (1976, Porto) lives and works near Barcelona. He creates process-oriented works in various formats: sculptures, paintings, drawings, performances, video, and above all in situ installations, that refer to and intervene in their immediate architectural surroundings.
In March 2024, he was the invited artist at the celebrations of the third anniversary of Museo Helga de Alvear, where he also has his exhibition Performing Nature, curated by Sandra Guimarães on view until 12 May 2024.
This year’s selection continues Bunga’s formal language and his highly developed degree of aesthetic care and delicacy. Presenting all new sculptures, the conceptual complexity derived from the inter-relationship between doing and undoing, between unmaking and remaking, between the micro and the macro, between investigation and conclusion find here full expression.
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Carlos Bunga, Rolling Painting #5, 2024. Latex and glue on run. 143 x ⌀ 21 cm. Unique
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Carlos Bunga, Casulo #5 Casulo IV Casulo V, 2021. Stoneware. Pencil on tracing paper and paper, tape. 25,2 x 12 cm. Unique
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While frequently employing unassuming materials like packing cardboard and adhesive tape, Carlos Bunga’s works exude a meticulous attention to aesthetic detail and refinement, coupled with a conceptual richness stemming from the intricate interplay of creation and deconstruction, of dismantling and reconstructing, of the minuscule and the vast, and of inquiry and resolution.
Carlos Bunga, Punto de fuga #11, 2024. Acrylic on cardboard. 5 x 5 x 4 cm. Unique
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Carlos Bunga, Ponto de Fuga #12, 2024. Acrylic on cardboard. 5 x 5 x 4 cm. Unique
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CHARBEL-JOSEPH H. BOUTROS
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros (1981, Lebanon) and lives and works between Beirut and Paris.
In his work invisibility is charged with intimate, geographical and historical layers; finding poetic lines that extend beyond the realm of existing speculations and realities.
Being born in the middle of the Lebanese war, his art is not engaged in an explicit political and historical reflection, but is more accurately haunted by the said political and historical reflection.
For H. Boutros, each exhibition is a new geography that reformulates reality.
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Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, But even dead can dance, Love, 2021. Paper, ashes 65 x 50 cm. Unique
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One of the topics around which Charbel-joseph H. Boutros’ work revolves is the notion of Charged Abstraction, which he defines as an abstraction that is not due to the energy of colors and the rhythms of the composition per se, but an abstraction that is defined by the invisible charge that it endured, like a material that is heated, or a human that received a charge of emotions after having an experience.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Night Archive, 2020. Night cartography, cotton cover, heat, obscurity. Variable dimensions. Unique (variation on series)
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In No Light In White Light, Night Cartography, a black smudge maps the hours that the artist has slept, this abstract shape contains all the dreams that he has experienced during the night and also contains this transformative experience that one encounters when he sleeps.
The work is conceived as a diary, where the night becomes the center and the day its periphery.
The work is exhibited close to a wool cover, a cover that is used to envelop the work when it is not shown. The night cartography becomes enclosed inside a dark volume, a night…
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Days under their own sun, 2013. Lebanese calendar sheets, sun. 31 x 22 x 3,5 cm/ each calendar
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In the works entitled But Even Dead Can Dance, a white paper is torn, then burned and transformed into ashes, and those ashes are applied on the remains of the white paper, alluding to the notion of resurrection in life….
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Even Dead Can Dance, Love, 2021. Paper, ashes. 48 x 36 cm (framed). Unique
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Daniel Gustav Cramer, XCV, 2023. Metal plate. 22 x 3 x 1,5 cm. Unique
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DANIEL GUSTAV CRAMER
Daniel Gustav Cramer (1975, Düsseldorf) lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Royal College of Art, in London.
Daniel Gustav Cramer’s artistic practice revolves around a multifaceted exploration of the interplay between image, sound, and text, akin to the art of songwriting. Delving into abstract forms and the relationships between humanity, nature, and the unseen, Daniel Gustav Cramer’s work invites viewers to contemplate the varied dimensions of existence. His creative process unfolds organically, often sparked by incidental moments or extensive research, resulting in works that offer nuanced narratives and evoke profound reflections on the world around us.
Daniel Gustav Cramer, Fuji-San I (clouds), 2023. C-Print, framed. 67 x 76 x 3 cm (framed). Ed. 1/5 + 1 AP
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Went to see Mount Fuji. All-day clouds.
I am not interested in photographing the most depicted mountain in the world. This photograph, these clouds, documents Fujisan without showing it… like saying I love you by holding someone’s hand rather than using words.
Went to see Mount Fuji. All-day clouds. Waited until night time.
There is something about the blueness, the night, meeting Fujisan… an abstraction of the image as we know it, in the tradition of Japanese Shin Hanga wood prints. The artists, Hasui Kawase amongst them, depicted classic scenes of daily life, often in specific atmospheres, like the night.
Daniel Gustav Cramer, Fuji-San II (at night), 2023. C-Print, framed. 67 x 76 x 3 cm (framed). Ed. 1/5 + 1 AP
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Daniel Gustav Cramer, Great Blue Heron passing Sakura Trees at Meguro River, 13 June 2019, 2021. C-print, aluminum framed. 72,5 x 103 cm. Ed. 1/5 + 1AP
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When descending towards Narita Airport, I had a list decided to photograph Sakura trees – even though it wasn’t the time of blossom; the mystical Great Blue Heron – even though I didn’t plan to visit the countryside; and the Meguro River – a river that runs almost entirely underground, below the city of Tokyo. On my first day, I captured all in one shot.
Daniel Gustav Cramer, Silenzio, 2022.
Text on paper, framed, gold leaf. 68 x 51 cm. Ed. 2/5 + AP
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In the summer of 2022, I was invited to a solo show in Bologna. Corona lay a few months behind, and shortly after, Putin declared war on Ukraine. At the time, I had a dream, of floating in space, looking at the planet, and trying to return back home. From afar, I could “zoom in”, and see a mother with her child, hand in hand, walking along a pavement, cars, one after the other in a traffic jam, birds hiding in the trees. However hard I tried, no movement made me get any closer to getting back “home”. As the space was framed by a large window to a park, it felt to me most appropriate to keep the space empty as it was, and invite the audience to look outside, to reflect on what is already there, in our world, to look at the window as a screen and the world behind as evidence of all there is.
A publication was produced made of two elements: a letter to the curator and a description of the dream. the dream continued to live on in the form it is now, framed, with gold leaf.
Tales is an ongoing series of groups of photographs. They document women and men in their natural environment. The figures are mostly portrayed from a distance, over a certain amount of time. The difference between the captured moments unfolds what happens “inside” the characters and points to the fleeting progression of time.
The scene of Tales 107 frames a group of art students in a museum in the north of Tokyo. The park hosts several museums and a zoo. A young man paints the Tokyo National Museum Gallery of Horyuji Treasures. The sun is setting behind the museum. The canvas and the waterglass show that he is using only one color: blue. His fellow students observe and compare his efforts with the actual museum, outside the frame of the images.
Gabriela Albergaria, Peças repartidas #2a, 2023. Ink jet print on rag, colour pencil on paper (Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm). 135 x 55 cm. Unique
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GABRIELA ALBERGARIA
Gabriela Albergaria (Vale de Cambra, 1965) her work involves one territory: Nature. A nature manipulated, planted, transported, set in hierarchy, catalogued, studied, felt and recalled through the ongoing exploration of gardens in photography, drawing and sculpture. The artist views gardens as elaborated constructs, representational systems and descriptive mechanisms that epitomize a set of fictional beliefs that are employed to represent the natural world. Gardens are also environments dedicated to leisure and study, cultural and social processes that produce a historical understanding of what is knowledge and what is pleasure.
More generally, the images of gardens and plant species employed by the artist are used as devices to reveal processes of cultural change through which visions of nature are produced. Mediated by representation systems they generate different versions of what we see as landscape—itself a complex system of material structures and visual hierarchies, cultural constructs that define the framing of our visual field.
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Gabriela Albergaria, Forests #12, 2024.
Ink jet print on rag, colour pencil on paper (Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm).
45 x 40 cm. Unique
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Gabriela Albergaria, Arboretum, 2024. Ink jet print on rag, colour pencil on paper (Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm). 101 x 75 cm
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Some of the pieces I’m presenting at the fair belong to the series of photos/drawings I started some time ago, based on the idea of plant colonisation. The travelling and acclimatisation of plants is a phenomenon that has existed since time immemorial for the simple reason that human beings move around territories and carry plant seeds and seedlings with them. But it is mainly since the time of travellers discovering new worlds that plants have become not only an essential commodity, but also a decorative and prestigious one. Think of tulips or palm trees, for example. In my wanderings through forests and gardens, whenever I’m in a place whose flora and spatial arrangement reminds me of another place I’ve already visited, I take a photo and, in the studio, I draw the part that will add to this kind of fictional landscape.
Gabriela Albergaria, Arboretum, 2024. Ink jet print on rag, colour pencil on paper (Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm). 101 x 75 cm
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Gabriela Albergaria, Forests #11, 2024. Ink jet print on rag, colour pencil on paper (Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm). 50 x 40 cm
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I see the piece “Entre parentesis” as part of a sequence of pieces and actions I’ve been carrying out recently, where the idea of recovery and reuse is present. This piece evokes a silent text that creates meaning. Its starting point is concepts related to recovery/reuse. In this case, I collected several sticks in different states of decomposition from the forest floor and from some gardens near my house. I washed them, put them in the freezer to avoid insects and recovered the voids and holes with sulphur-free plasticine.
IGNASI ABALLÍ
Ignasi Aballí (1958, Barcelona) completed his undergraduate studies in Fine Art at the University of Barcelona, where he is currently based for both residence and creative endeavors. Central to Aballí’s artistic practice is the deliberate challenge he presents to viewers’ perceptions. His work fundamentally aims to elucidate the existence of numerous phenomena imperceptible to the naked eye, yet profoundly impactful on our experiences. He underscores the notion that just because certain elements evade our visual grasp does not render them nonexistent; rather, they contribute to a semantic interplay between the seen and the unseen: evasive images, transparent yet concealing, and texts offering only fragments, incomplete elucidations, and abstracted insights.
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Ignasi Aballí, Abandoned Painting I, 2004 – 2023. Dust on canvas, 22 x 28 cm. Unique
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Ignasi Aballí, Wrong Paintings VIII (Make-Up), 2007-2023. Make-up and dust on canvas. Ten pieces of 40 x 30, each. Unique
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Ignasi Aballí, Diptych (Prólogo/Epílogo), 2018. Two pages of different books. 32 x 23 cm (framed). Unique
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This work is a new version of a previous one, Translation of a Japanese Dictionary of Color Combinations I. The two works refer as a starting point to the books edited by the Japanese artist, fashion and kimono designer and professor Sanzo Wada (1883 -1967). The books were published in the 1930s. Wada created the Japan Standard Color Association in 1927 and became the president of the Japan Color Research Laboratory in 1945.
The books propose a series of color combinations to be applied to graphic design, textile design and industrial design.
It is an exercise in perception and “translation” of the color printed in the book to the color printed in the newspaper. A way to paint without paint, using some clippings that I found every day in the newspaper, after several years of cutting and classifying them.
This is a work related to others I did before, using the newspaper as source material, such as Lists, Calendars, CMYK Seas or Horizons.
Ignasi Aballí, Translation of a Japanese Dictionary of Color Combinations (Book I), 2018. Newspaper collage and digital printing on paper. 3 x (45 x 32 cm) framed. Unique
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Four from the series Inside, 2022. Acrylic on MDF, ceramics. 53 x 25 x 25 cm. Unique
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SUSANNE S. D. THEMLITZ
Susanne S. D. Themlitz (Lisbon, 1968) lives and works in Cologne and Lisbon. In her practice, the act of drawing becomes a means of intricately linking thought and imagination, fostering the exploration and nourishment of unconventional processes. Each drawing represents a detachment from external influences, creating a self-contained realm where everything exists within. This inner world possesses its own distinctive atmosphere and the ability to gather and embody forces, energies, and vibrations, thereby establishing itself as a distinct reality.
In parallel to her Art Brussels participation with Galeria Vera Cortês, she presents the solo exhibition “Still / Home” at the Boiler Room of Galeria Martins & Montero, in Brussels.
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Once Upon a Time Moment, 2024 Graphite on acrylic and MDF 40 x 30 x 2 cm. Unique
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Moment Inside, 2024. Graphite on acrylic and MDF, 30 x 24 x 2 cm. Unique
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Señor Ernst, 2024. Graphite on acrylic and MDF. 30 x 24 x 2 cm. Unique
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Home, 2024 Graphite on acrylic and MDF, plaster with acrylic, ceramic with glaze, acrylic on MDF. 50 x 45 x 15 cm. Unique
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In her work, Themlitz deals with the ambiguities of the real, the imaginary and the hidden. In a permanent state of metamorphosis, her works are also entropic moments. The natural, dreamlike, coincidences, in-between worlds as well as the variability of materials and media are also important components of her paintings, sculptures and installations. The development of disparate universes and landscapes is a constant in her work. Fragments, details and parallel planes are often present.
Susanne S. D. Themlitz, The Moss Sleep, 2023/24. Graphite, colour pencil, oil pastel on paper, oil on canvas and paper, printed words (collage). 30 x 21 cm. Unique
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Susanne S. D. Themlitz, Without Title (Wind), 2024. Graphite, charcoal, oil pastel and colour pencil on paper, printed words (collage), 30 x 21 cm. Unique
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JOHN WOOD AND PAUL HARRISON
John Wood (1969, Hong Kong) and Paul Harrison (1966, Wolverhampton) make things that move and things that don’t, things that are flat and things that are not, things that are mildly amusing and things that are definitely not. They make works that form a kind of reference manual for how to do, make, build, or draw things that you probably never want to do, make, build, or draw. They do it for you. Even though you don’t need them to. This attempt to compile an encyclopaedia of the everyday, started in 1993 after they met at art college.
John Wood and Paul Harrison, Slip Hazard, 2023. Oil on plywood panel. 41 x 51 x 3 cm. Series of 10
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John Wood and Paul Harrison, Trip Hazard, 2023. Oil on plywood panel. 41 x 51 cm.
Series of 10
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A trip hazard sign, remade as a painting; same size, same colour, same everything. But not the same. This painting still functions as a warning sign, but it also functions as a painting, an image, a short narrative of someone tripping up.
A text painting (from a series Wood and Harrison have been working on since 2020), which sits somewhere between a poster and a painting of a poster, playfully evokes conceptualism but also imparts information; you read and understand the words; you read and understand the ‘thing’ as a painting, the duo thickly applying rich, impasto paint just to make sure you know it’s definitely a painting.
John Wood and Paul Harrison,
Boring thing on a wall, 2023.
Oil paint on plywood panel. 41 x 31 x 3 cm. Ed. 1/10
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‘Remade’ signs, tote bags, and posters are just some of the un-normal things Wood and Harrison will present at Art Brussels.
Taking objects; standard things, mass-produced things, the nothing special things we see or interact with every day (or every other day), they remake and represent. Taking the normal and making it slightly less normal.
John Wood and Paul Harrison,
Drip Bag Painting I, 2023. Oil and Enamel Paint on Plywood Panel. 61 x 61 x 2 cm.
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A tote bag, just like the ones you are given and carry around at an art fair, remade both as an object (an almost useable bag) and a painting of an object (a completely unusable object).
John Wood and Paul Harrison, Tote_1, 2023. Enamel paint on cotton tote bag. 41 x 41 cm (plus handle)
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John Wood and Paul Harrison, Tote_2, 2023. Enamel paint on cotton tote bag. 41 x 41 cm (plus handle)
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John Wood and Paul Harrison, Tote_3, 2023. Enamel paint on cotton tote bag. 41 x 41 cm (plus handle)
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