HAROLD ANCART

Ancart’s signature large-scale works, often created in oil stick on paper or canvas, have gained international acclaim for their chromatic intensity and psychological depth.

Artworks

Ancart’s practice is characterised by a synthesis of abstract and representational motifs, exploring themes of isolation, entropy, and spatial ambiguity through vibrant, symbolic imagery.

Liminal Landscapes and Imagined Topographies

In Ancart’s early career, his fascination with landscapes took form through drawings and paintings of geological structures—icebergs, volcanic plains, deserts. Exhibited in There Is No There There (C L E A R I N G, Brussels, 2013), these images combined flat planes of colour with irregular outlines, inviting the viewer into an in-between world neither wholly real nor invented. The works draw on the tradition of the Romantic sublime, yet rendered with a contemporary, graphic minimalism.

Concrete as Canvas: Urban Sculptures and Barrier Paintings

Between 2015 and 2017, Ancart began experimenting with concrete structures as both medium and subject. In his Concrete Jungle Jungle Concrete series, he painted on industrial materials like road dividers and barriers, transforming them into artefacts of urban life. First exhibited with David Zwirner, the series questioned the aesthetics of urban infrastructure while highlighting its latent sculptural possibilities.

These works reflect Ancart’s ongoing engagement with materials commonly overlooked in fine art, and his interest in liminal spaces like highways, alleys, and parking lots.

Tropical Trees, Ice Cream Trucks and Pools of Colour

Ancart’s more recent paintings show an increasing shift toward stylised representations of palm trees, swimming pools, and ice cream trucks—motifs that conjure leisure and escapism. In Traveling Light (David Zwirner, New York, 2018), vibrant oil stick works depict these objects floating against radiant backgrounds of blue, pink, and green. The simplified forms evoke children’s drawings but carry an eerie solitude.

The contrast between playful iconography and stark composition suggests a deeper meditation on isolation, nostalgia, and contemporary desire. His works invite viewers to consider the architecture of paradise and how it intersects with psychological longing.

What are Harold Ancart’s influences?

Ancart draws from a wide range of artistic and cultural sources. His work is often compared to the lyrical abstraction of Henri Matisse and the existential landscapes of Giorgio de Chirico. He has cited the influence of American Minimalists like Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly in his approach to space and colour.

Surrealism also plays a role—particularly the Belgian tradition of René Magritte and Paul Delvaux. Additionally, road trips across the American West and the transient aesthetics of motels, rest stops, and drive-ins have inspired Ancart’s visual vocabulary. These journeys manifest in the repetitive iconography of trees, trucks, and desert roads that recur throughout his work.

Awards and Accolades

• Charlotte von Stein Grant for Emerging Artists, 2010
• Represented Belgium at La Biennale de Montréal, 2016

Exhibitions

Harold Ancart has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important institutions and international galleries.

Solo Exhibitions

• Maison Ancart. Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris (2024)
• Harold Ancart: A Strange Encounter. Clearing, Los Angeles (2021)
• Harold Ancart: The Charm.... Xavier Hufkens, Brussels (2017)
• Harold Ancart and Calvin Marcus. Karma, Amagansett, New York (2017)
• Harold Ancart: Grand Flâneur. David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2016)

Group Exhibitions

• The Swimmer, FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2024)
• Contemporary Art + Design. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2020)
• Convex/Concave: Belgian Contemporary Art (organised by WIELS Centre d’art Contemporain, Brussels). TANK Shanghai (2019)
• Peindre La Nuit. Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2018)
• High Anxiety: New Acquisitions. Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2016)
• Champs Elysées. Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013)
• Un-Scene II. WIELS Centre d’art Contemporain, Brussels (2012)

Further Reading

Ancart’s work has been covered in leading publications including Ocula, Interview Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and W Magazine.

Ocula | 2025