This year, we will contribute to the fairs' theme "Art & Environment" with four of our represented artists, who each have a strong connection with nature: Ross Bleckner, Justin Brice, Tony Matelli and Arne Quinze.
Ross Bleckner found peace and strength in the beauty and fragility of flowers when AIDS struck the art world. He has since joined a long pictorial tradition of painting of flowers and floral bouquets, tackling the perfection of nature, and expressing ideas and feelings through their symbolic language. Bleckner's paintings prompt meditation on birth, death and the fragility of life, vanity and beauty which always end up dying, as well as life’s organic power and eroticism.
Justin Brice's photographs explores the possibilities of photography to trigger an ecological consciousness amongst the viewer. Brice frequently partners with scientists, poets and philosophers in his research based art practice that addresses climate change and the ecological crisis. Notably, this includes a series of seven missions he's flown with NASA scientists to document the rapidly changing ice, images which he's used as source material in his work.
Tony Matelli’s perspectival reorientations of objects and ideas reach their apex in the Arrangement series, where bouquets of flowers are upended and reified into miraculous and meticulously constructed sculptures. These sculptures are reinstated upon the pedestal as if the laws of nature containing them were intact—yet inverted —around them. Added are works from Matelli's Weeds series, which sprout from the
space between stand walls and floors, a testimony of the perseverance of nature. All Matelli's works are traditional cast bronze and exquisitely painted.
The electric bright colours and joyful explosion of flowers paintings from Arne Quinze reflect the unbridled beauty of nature. Through his work, Quinze reflects on todays growing differences between the diversity of nature and the ongoing expansion of monotone cities. Driven by the force of nature, he hopes to guide cities towards a better future by making living environments more human and green.
This timely body of works attuned to Art Paris' chosen topic of 2022 will be completed with a selection of established artists reflecting the gallery's program, including Radcliffe Bailey, Ron Gorchov, Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker and Hank Willis Thomas.
