Chelsea Gallery Thursday Openings
Collapsing Inward; The Deconstruction of Space and Figure.
This Thursday, I hopped into a few galleries in Chelsea; here's the list of galleries I explored:
Morgan Lehman
Nicolas Auvray
Rosebud Contemporary
Marianne Boesky
Ross+Kramer
Out of the list, Hilary Irons' "A Place of Greater Safety" at Morgan Lehman Gallery and Clement Denis' Solo Show "Beyond The Lines, Where Borders Collapse" at Nicolas Auvray Gallery stood out to me.
Hilary Irons' "A Place of Greater Safety"
Pictured above is a group of gorgeous paintings from the "Divination Card" series by Hilary Irons. Before this Thursday, I was completely unaware of Irons and even the Morgan Lehman Gallery. The exhibition's name is taken from Hilary Mantel's 1992 novel, which is about, funny enough, the French Revolution. Though I couldn't immediately find a connection between the feelings her work roused within me, of innocence and recollection, and the ferocious beheading of aristocrats, as I continued to ponder over it, I guess "A Place of Greater Safety" encapsulates vulnerability. It's those pockets of time between the violent and uncertain moments that allow us to preserve and restore a feeling of safety; it is protection from what we all are in childhood, incredibly vulnerable.
Irons' works evoke an idyllic and magical space reminiscent of childhood imagination. Within her work is an absolute collapse of terrain. Seashells and flowers are pressed against the same space like a catalog of pieces of every place someone has ever loved. Irons brings the viewer to a space between the imagined and remembered through the canvas. Her palette consists of pastels mixed with striking dark outlines. When I first saw the exhibition, Hilma af Kint came to mind, the dreamy landscapes, strong silhouettes, and hidden meanings within the works. The show will run from October 10th to November 9th, 2024
Clement Denis' Solo Show "Beyond The Lines, Where Borders Collapse"
Next up is Clement Denis. Once again, I am new to Denis' work. I have a strong love of the human figure, and seeing the numerous figures interwoven throughout Denis' work interested me. Some figures are connected through lines, while others are materially intertwined through meticulously woven or layered ripped paper. His work collapses the individual identity and introduces us to a collective beyond physical boundaries in the representation of the figure and through the material. The work presents the complexity of human relations and the ego with joy and tension.
While in the portraits, we are presented with a serene, individually indiscernible expression, in his depictions of the figure in its entirety, there is a restlessness in movement. The figures are engaged in a struggle; they begin at the border of the paper, where they are rendered in just their outline and meet in the center; here, we can see a fuller palette being used in their depiction. Denis has a background in judo and jiu-jitsu, and the movements in his work are based on the gestures within the martial arts. The figures are isolated from an environment; the background is usually a white valley, forcing the viewers to focus on the connection and the dynamics it elicits. The show will run from October 10th to December 1st, 2024.
As I delved deeper into this article, a common thread between the artists appeared-both engage in the process of deconstruction. Irons dismantles space, while Denis disassembles the individual, folding it into a collective. This exercise of deconstruction creates a space that blurs the line between the perceivable and the tangible, inviting us into a world of imagined landscapes and connections.