Harold Ancart

Brussels-born artist Harold Ancart hopes to reveal the “tensions created between the various zones of emptiness” in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations. The artist uses crude materials including ink, charcoal powder, and soot for installations that emerge from actively adding these elements to the exhibition space. His sculptures, often rendered from concrete, poxy resin, or steel, summon primitive tools and ancient relics. His works on canvas and paper are a delicate counterpoint, hosting recurring elements such as parrots, jungles, and palm trees that evoke globetrotting leisure. A series of burned photographs use the residue from smoke to impose ominous clouds upon paradise—a direct reference to the smoke and mirrors of tourism. Ancart’s juxtaposition between organic and contrived visuals reflects how space might be manipulated to reflect the imagination, and the ways in which an exhibition is a platform to toy with these expectations.

Ancart has participated in Art Basel Unlimited and the 9th Taipei Biennial in 2014. His work has been shown at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, Witte de With, Rotterdam, and the Emily Harvey Foundation, New York.