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Victor Man Exhibition
Blum
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Artists
Victor Man
Victor Man’s paintings are full of contrasts and contradictions yet present oddly plausible metamorphic conflations. Born in 1974 in Cluj, this exhibition by the Romanian painter - his first in Japan - will bring together a focused selection of small-format portraits and still life works with a common symbolic or allegorical character. Their content, however, defies clear interpretation and, rather, invites an investigation into the cycle of life and death - a theme that runs throughout the works; with Man the thematic cannot be separated from the painterly or the very presence that his works demand.
The artist’s intimate paintings situate themselves in a surreal, colorized interspace, where it appears as though a color filter has been laid over them. This state somewhere between sleep and reality lends a particular mood and closely connects the exhibited works. It also lends a certain artificiality where sharp contours stand out against a background that appears unrelated, or where strong blue shadows lay around the figures. Plant and human life join together in similarly conflicting ways, as do the architectural and the living, where at the same time they demand a life of their own as painterly forms. This fusion and separation of elements produces a bandying back and forth of types of seeing and perception.
Simultaneously painted in an old-masterly style and handled in a contemporary manner, Man’s figures are removed from time and refuse resolution as portraits, still lifes, or narratives. Instead, they are a poetic and surrealistic glimpse over a threshold behind which a separate working framework is developing, one that is, in a certain way, idiosyncratic and begs to be viewed again and again. As a result, there is a recognizable repetition of motifs as well as a number of references reaching from the Renaissance to classical modernity.
Man’s works distance themselves from the assumption that they are representations of something beyond themselves, while also avoiding a presumptive inwardness, managing to remain, instead, in a state of approximation that is reflected in repeated attempts to identify something, to locate itself and the “other.” His works, therefore, appear driven by questions of reorientation and refocusing, inscription in the possibilities of presentation and seeing, and of discovery.
A selection new and recent work will be presented here.
The artist’s intimate paintings situate themselves in a surreal, colorized interspace, where it appears as though a color filter has been laid over them. This state somewhere between sleep and reality lends a particular mood and closely connects the exhibited works. It also lends a certain artificiality where sharp contours stand out against a background that appears unrelated, or where strong blue shadows lay around the figures. Plant and human life join together in similarly conflicting ways, as do the architectural and the living, where at the same time they demand a life of their own as painterly forms. This fusion and separation of elements produces a bandying back and forth of types of seeing and perception.
Simultaneously painted in an old-masterly style and handled in a contemporary manner, Man’s figures are removed from time and refuse resolution as portraits, still lifes, or narratives. Instead, they are a poetic and surrealistic glimpse over a threshold behind which a separate working framework is developing, one that is, in a certain way, idiosyncratic and begs to be viewed again and again. As a result, there is a recognizable repetition of motifs as well as a number of references reaching from the Renaissance to classical modernity.
Man’s works distance themselves from the assumption that they are representations of something beyond themselves, while also avoiding a presumptive inwardness, managing to remain, instead, in a state of approximation that is reflected in repeated attempts to identify something, to locate itself and the “other.” His works, therefore, appear driven by questions of reorientation and refocusing, inscription in the possibilities of presentation and seeing, and of discovery.
A selection new and recent work will be presented here.
Schedule | Nov 10 (Fri) 2017-Jan 27 (Sat) 2018 Opening Hours Information
Opening Reception Nov 10 (Fri) 2017 18:00 - 20:00 | ||||||
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| Fee | Free | ||||||
| Website | https://www.blumandpoe.com/exhibitions/victor-man-1 | ||||||
| Venue | Blum https://blum-gallery.com/ | ||||||
| Location | 5F Harajuku Jingu-no-mori, 1-14-34 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku , Tokyo 150-0001 | ||||||
| Access | 1 minute walk from the Takeshita exit of Harajuku Station on the JR Yamanote line, 2 minute walk from exit 2 at Meiji-jingumae Station on the Chiyoda and Fukutoshin lines. | ||||||
| Phone | 03-3475-1631 | ||||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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