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Lesley Vance Xavier Hufkens 27 October–16 December 2017 St-Georges
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Press Release

Xavier Hufkens is delighted to present a new series of oil paintings and watercolours by American artist Lesley Vance. This exhibition, the third with the gallery, demonstrates the change of direction that Vance’s work has taken since 2014, now moving towards entirely invented images and bringing them towards the allusion of a physical reality.

Lesley Vance is an abstract painter whose visual language is rooted in her early engagement with still-life painting. Seeking to move beyond the boundaries of representation, Vance previously developed a process-based approach in which she translated everyday objects into abstract compositions. For these new works, Vance inverted her method. Freed from the rigours of direct observation, she now departs from immediate and improvised forms, often laid down wet-on-wet in concentrated bursts of activity. Henceforth, Vance allows the movements to follow their individual trajectories. Nothing is predetermined. As they coalesce, the artist will slow her pace in response to their singular and immutable logic. These variations in tempo, together with the dynamism of the swirling and looping forms, brings a new tensile strength to her work.

A consummate colourist, Vance’s latest works also bear witness to her mastery of nuance and contrast, as well as her interest in colour as a physical and material entity. Using fewer shades, but expanding the range and possibilities of each, she not only augments the spatial depth of her paintings but also intensifies the clarity of the compositional elements. In the same vein, she introduces intriguing surface details, such as the ribbons of dark striated paint. This visual acuity results in a play with the viewer’s perception of space and depth, deconstructing a straightforward analysis of the painting’s creative genesis.

While the artist’s paintings are independent, inward-looking entities, they are far from impersonal. Vance’s instinctual way of working is nourished by her deep commitment with the art-historical canon, from influences as wide ranging as Hilma af Klint, René Magritte, Georgia O’Keeffe, Carla Accardi and Christina Ramberg, as well as other artistic disciplines, most notably sculpture and ceramics and artists such as Hans Arp, Ken Price and Hannah Wilke. What Vance is often responding to is a type of materiality as message — the ability to manipulate her medium to exploit both its density and descriptive fluidity.

Lesley Vance (b. 1977, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has recently been included in the following group exhibitions: The Campaign for Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, 2016; Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Paintings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, LA, 2015; and Painter Painter, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2013. Solo presentations include: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Bowdoin, ME, 2012; the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY, 2012; and, with Ricky Swallow, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA, 2012. Lesley Vance’s work was also included in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, New York and is represented in the following museum collections: The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum.

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About the Artist

Lesley Vance has a highly personal and contemporary approach to painting, revisiting traditional genre of the still life in the form of exquisite abstractions. Having reproduced compositions of natural forms that she creates in her studio, she then works the paint into intimate luminous shapes wet-on-wet, often against darkened backgrounds.

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About the Gallery
Xavier Hufkens is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation-based work.

The origins of the gallery date back to 1987, when Xavier Hufkens opened a gallery space in an un-refurbished warehouse in the neighbourhood of the South Station (Midi) in Brussels. During the early years, the focus of the gallery was upon mid-career and emerging artists and the gallery is known for having introduced some of the most influential contemporary artists to Brussels at a time when they were still relatively unknown. British sculptor Antony Gormley, who is still affiliated with the gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rosemarie Trockel all showed in Belgium for the first time with Xavier Hufkens (Gormley in 1987; Gonzalez-Torres in 1991 and Trockel in 1993).

In 1992, the gallery moved to a 19th-century townhouse at 6 rue Saint-Georges, close to the Avenue Louise. Completely renovated by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the house quickly gained a reputation for being not just one of the most beautiful contemporary art spaces in the Belgian capital, but also one of the most interesting. The expanded exhibition programme coincided with the additional representation of a number of established artists from Belgium and abroad, including Richard Artschwager, Thierry De Cordier and Jan Vercruysse. In 1997, Hufkens expanded the gallery further by annexing the adjacent building and a number of new artists joined the gallery, including Louise Bourgeois, Roni Horn and Thomas Houseago.

A second space in the same street, at 107 rue Saint-Georges, opened in spring 2013. Located in the Galerie Rivoli, a mixed-use commercial development from the 1970s, the new gallery space was designed by Swiss architect Harry Gugger, who was previously in partnership with Herzog and De Meuron. Slegten & Toegemann, Brussels, managed the project. A third space opened in spring 2020, located at 44 Rue Van Eyck, designed by architect Bernard Dubois.

An eclectic but very clear vision underpins all of the gallery’s activities: ‘The definition of the gallery was established from the start. The common thread, then and now, is quality over and above everything else, which I find more intellectually challenging than a forced definition. From the early days I juxtaposed established artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with someone like Felix Gonzalez-Torres when he was totally unknown. Today I still mix my work: I have no problem showing Malcolm Morley … alongside Robert Ryman, or Willem de Kooning.’ [Xavier Hufkens in The Art Newspaper, Issue 220, January 2011, published online: 20 January 2011]

Xavier Hufkens represents some thirty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to five international Arts Fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.
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Address
6 rue St-Georges
St-Jorisstraat
Brussels
Belgium
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
(1)
Brussels 6 rue St-Georges
Xavier Hufkens contemporary art gallery in St-Georges Brussels Belgium
Xavier Hufkens
6 rue St-Georges, St-Jorisstraat, Brussels, Belgium
+32 263 967 30
http://www.xavierhufkens.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
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