EXHIBITION ｜ HONG KONG
Jules de Balincourt
「Birds on a Boat」
＜Dates＞ Friday , Mar 18 – Thursday , Apr 28, 2022
＜Location＞ PACE
＜Open＞ 12:00-18:00 Sunday, Monday CLOSE
Several pieces in Birds on a Boat feature groupings of de Balincourt’s transient, nomadic figures situated amid formidable trees, churning coastlines, and other natural settings that the artist injects with otherworldly and fantastical qualities. In these works, the artist has said, it’s unclear whether the diminutive figures have found themselves in these environments “out of leisure or out of desperation.” For viewers, the wind, rain, and other natural forces depicted in these paintings are visceral and deeply felt.
“In a lot of this work you really feel the earthiness within the paintings. I want to convey the physicality of the natural elements, such as the wind, the plants, the rain,” the artist has said of his landscapes. “It’s about these really basic, earthy elements, and our relationship and our vulnerability, as we attempt to coexist in a constant flux.”
Other works in the exhibition feature nude male figures. Depicting torsos, arms, and obscured faces, these works blur the boundary between abstraction and figuration. Limbs and abdomens converge with their surroundings, and the artist positions his figures at a crossroads between full representation and abstraction. Like de Balincourt’s landscapes, these works defy easy narrative ascription or categorization.
Formally engaged with the work of artists like Arthur Dove and Milton Avery, as well as the traditions of Fauvism and German Expressionism, de Balincourt’s paintings can be understood as vehicles into exploring the subconscious. Rife with expressions of fragility, vulnerability, imbalance, and precarity, these works take up timely motifs and ideas.
PACE
https://www.pacegallery.com/
12/F, H Queen’s 80 Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong
tel：+852 2608 5065