Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of 12 recent paintings by Jules de Balincourt at its Hong Kong gallery. The show marks the artist's first solo exhibition with Pace since he joined the gallery in 2021. This is also de Balincourt's first solo presentation in Hong Kong since 2012.
Paintings in the show span landscape and figuration. Rendered in rich colours at large-and small-scales, these works reflect de Balincourt's interest in using the paintings to merge his own psychological landscape with external, global landscapes. In his practice, de Balincourt often explores the relationships between humanity and the natural world. The artist, who takes an intuitive, stream of consciousness approach to painting, imbues much of his work with mystery and ambiguity.
Several pieces in Birds on a Boat feature groupings of de Balincourt's transient, nomadic figures situated amid formidable trees, churning coastlines, and other natural settings that the artist injects with otherworldly and fantastical qualities. In these works, the artist has said, it's unclear whether the diminutive figures have found themselves in these environments "out of leisure or out of desperation." For viewers, the wind, rain, and other natural forces depicted in these paintings are visceral and deeply felt.
'I think in a lot of this work you really feel the earthiness. You feel the wind, the nature, the rain," the artist has said of his landscapes. "It's almost about these really basic, earthy elements and our vulnerability within this Earth that is percolating and brewing.'
Other works in the exhibition feature nude male figures. Depicting torsos, arms, and obscured faces, these works blur the boundary between abstraction and figuration. Limbs and abdomens converge with their surroundings, and the artist positions his figures at a crossroads between full representation and abstraction. Like de Balincourt's landscapes, these works defy easy narrative ascription or categorisation.
Formally engaged with the work of artists like Arthur Dove and Milton Avery, as well as the traditions of Fauvism and German Expressionism, de Balincourt's paintings can be understood as vehicles into exploring the subconscious. Rife with expressions of fragility, vulnerability, imbalance, and precarity, these works take up timely motifs and ideas.
Press release courtesy Pace Gallery.
12/F H Queen's
80 Queen's Road Central
Hong Kong
www.pacegallery.com
+852 260 850 65
+852 260 850 64 (Fax)
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 7pm