ANDREW GBUR

Gbur pares down familiar images to two or three opaque shades, applied contiguously in cartographic blocks. While the resultant pieces are recognizably depictive, the acts of isolation, visual reduction and repetition void their subject matter of its wonted semantic content. While past exhibitions have been limited to a single repeated subject, the artist’s driving concern with seriality manifests here as a network of motifs and themes, endowing the exhibition with a discernable rhythmicity. The works are mired in post-war Art History, repurposing the aesthetics of Pop Art and Minimalism to interrogate the value – or lack thereof – of contemporary symbols and signage.

Gbur’s practice is complexly, omnivorously appropriative: he derives his raw material from a variety of sources, recycling specific, identifiable iconography (the 20th Century Fox logo, a Suicide album cover), as well drawing from a more general pictorial lexicon (a sword, a pair of pants, a pumpkin). The paintings are cannibalistic, stripping pictures of nutritional value and re-presenting them as skeletons of themselves. A smiley face, the contemporary emblem of banal pleasantry, in Gbur’s hands reads as both vacant and malevolent; rather than serving its standard purpose of evincing happiness, the smiling hieroglyph instead reconnoiters the potential for deception and psychological violence intrinsic to pictographic communication. By inverting and nullifying his subject matter’s semiotic associations, Gbur bolsters his surfaces. The paintings’ initial impression of Minimalistic austerity deteriorates upon close investigation: subtle indications of their making – material inconsistencies, paper left behind by stencils, minute drips – quietly riddle the works.

Opposite – 30th Century, 2015

Exhibition runs through to February 28th, 2016

team (gallery, inc.)
83 Grand Street
10013 New York
USA

teamgal.com

JAN DE MAESSCHALCK – DOMESTICATED

Two years ago, when De Maesschalck’s parental house was cleared out, the artist discovered in the attic a stack of old newspaper cartoon sections he used to read as a child. They ended up in his studio and when he started looking through them in the spring of 2015, he noticed how certain images had ingrained themselves into his memory. Also, it appeared to him that the patina of the fragile paper would serve as an ideal base tone for skin colour. The papers became the carriers for a new series in which the printed images, like tattoos, shimmer through a number of intriguing gazes. He reads the paper, the printed image, and eliminates and creates. With accurate speed he paints portraits with diluted acrylic paint. The fictional characters are lost in thought or hint at, whether consciously or not, associations with that which is visible to them but which nonetheless remains hidden from us. As always, De Maesschalck manages to stimulate our imagination. The domestic origins of this new series already largely explain the emotional charge of the title which nonetheless hides another meaning as well. When, after a long time, an animal, plant or human being adapts to its environment, this is referred to as domesticated or tamed behaviour. This also applies to the social adaptation of the human being.

Opposite – Sofa, 2015

Exhibition runs through to February 28th, 2016

Zeno X Gallery
Godtsstraat 15
2140 Antwerp
Belgium

www.zeno-x.com