During UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos proudly presents a group presentation with work by Hans Op de Beeck (BE, 1969), Esther Tielemans, (NL, 1976), Ryan McGinness (US, 1972), Isaac Julien (UK, 1960), Lieven Hendriks (NL, 1970), and Pavel Grosu (MD, 1991). These artists share a common interest in a fundamental research into the possibilities of their artistic medium. By investigating the essence of painting, sculpture and photography, these artists put the power of imagination to the test, thereby challenging the observation of the viewer. Their craftmanship invites the viewer to take a step closer and experience the richness of form and color through a multitude of layers. By observing these artworks from different perspectives, they turn out to express a surprising disruptiveness, asking urgent questions about society and artistic traditions. Through the ever-fluctuating shapes and colors of their work, these artists continue to disrupt our perception of surface and space. What you see is not always what you get.
Hans Op de Beeck (BE, 1969) produces large installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. His work is a reaction to our complex society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it. He regards man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way. Above all, Op de Beeck is keen to stimulate the viewers’ senses and invite them to really experience the image. He seeks to create a form of visual action that delivers a moment of wonder, silence and introspection.
Previously, Op de Beeck’s work has been shown at The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg; GEM, The Hague; MUHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa; and P.S.1-MoMA, New York.
Esther Tielemans(NL, 1976) investigates the foundations of painting, and in particular the suggestion of a reality, of a third dimension within a flat framework. In her abstract paintings, she examines our ways of observing landscapes and demonstrates there is not one specific direction of viewing. Her colorful landscapes, composed of multiple plywood panels, seem to have no end within their framework. Different dimensions intertwine in a dizzying way. Tielemans' work highlights the tension between space and illusion and requires the viewer to actively observe and experience how change of view also generates change of meaning.
After her residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, Esther Tielemans won the Royal Award for Modern Painting, the Prix de Rome and the Wolvecamp Prize. She completed a residency programs at Künstlerhaus Bethaniën, Berlin, and is currently a resident at ISCP, New York. Her work has been shown at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, amongst others.
Ryan McGinness (USA, 1972) is credited with elevating the status of the icon to fine art. By fragmenting, altering and layering images of logos and symbols, human organs and plant life, fairy tails and everyday scenes, McGinness builds up his dense networks of brightly colored fantastical imagery. Swathed in ornate, curvaceous lines, McGinness's compositions are a postmodern twist on the eighteenth-century Rococo style, characterized by playful opulence and intricate, coiling forms. His extensive vocabulary of original graphic drawings that use the visual language of public signage, corporate logos, and contemporary symbology finds expression in his paintings, sculptures, installations, and books.
McGinness’s work can be found in such art institutions as MoMA, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and many private and corporate collections including the Neuberger Berman Collection, the Schwab Family Collection, and the Charles Saatchi Collection.
Isaac Julien(UK, 1960) is as acclaimed for his fluent, arresting films as his vibrant and inventive museum installations. One of the objectives of his work is to break down the barriers that exist between different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture, and uniting them to construct a powerfully visual narrative. In Julien’s most recent series of work, A Marvellous Entanglement, the artist reflects on the modernist architecture of Lina Bo Bardi and her approach to Brazilian culture.
Recent solo exhibitions include Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; MoMA, New York and Art Institute of Chicago. Julien’s work is held in collections that include Tate, London; MoMA New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He was awarded the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s birthday honours, 2017 and made a Royal Academician in 2018.
Lieven Hendriks(NL, 1970) takes everyday subjects in which the human touch is visible as a starting point for his work. For example, he paints nails in walls, stars and vases cut out of paper, and finger drawings on foggy windows. By using trompe l’oeil effects, his flat canvases appear as loosely stretched linens, deceiving the eyes of the viewer. In his work, Lieven Hendriks, plays a game with the nature of observation. His paintings anticipate how we look at art, how we focus our attention, and how this process is affected by surrounding circumstances. In this way, his work touches directly on the essence of painting and the value attached to it.
Lieven Hendriks (1970) studied at the HKU in Utrecht and was a resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. His work is part of many renowned international collections, including Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; ESMoA Los Angeles; and the Centraal Museum, Utrecht.
Pavel Grosu’s (MD, 1991) approach to painting is characterized by the prominence of the figurative, the preference for vague historical or social references, and the emphasis on the technical quality of the works, seen first and foremost as aesthetic objects. In his newest series ‘Fragmented Dreams’, Grosu is challenging the many facets of representation through his often surrealist combination of elements. The fusion of contemporary human figures and ancient statues create an ongoing process of symbolism and signification, leaving the viewer in a state of wonder.
Pavel Grosu was born in 1991 in the Republic of Moldova. He currently lives and works in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, where he is doing a doctorate at the University of Art and Design. He recently has shown works at the Five Plus Art Gallery, Vienna, Austria (2016); Doris Ghetta Gallery, Milan, Italy (2017); Boccanera Gallery, Trento, Italy (2017); and Sector1 Gallery, Bucharest (2017).
