Alter Ego
We are delighted to announce our new group show Alter Ego. Alter Ego brings together seven exciting young painters who are re-energising and re-calibrating the contemporary painterly voice; amidst the din of an increasingly varied artistic landscape painters are having to adapt their practices and thought processes in order to stay relevant. Each artist skilfully utilises an artistic alter ego, a persona that recurs throughout their work, acting as a mouthpiece for the artists’ ideas. Please join us on Tuesday March 3rd for a panel discussion and Private View.
Tickets are available here.
Scroll down for more information on the artists.
Philip Gerald
Adopting a retro aesthetic, Philip Gerald’s unapologetically vulgar work harks back to a time of clip art and Microsoft paint, of crude humour and juvenile behaviour. They aim to simultaneously expose and ease Gerald’s personal anxieties, while taking a sardonic look at contemporary existence.
Philip Gerald lives and works in Dublin. He studied Fine Art Sculpture and Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, before dropping out in third year to develop his skills as a writer. A phlegmatic character, Gerald isn’t too concerned with how his work is received, but rather chooses to focus on enjoying the process.
Self Portrait 2069 #2, 2019, Acrylic on canvas. 120 x 100 x 4.5 cm.
Tadija Janicic
Tadija Janicic’s practice is primarily concerned with figuration: although abstraction creeps in, it is the figures of humans and animals that recur across his quasi-psychedelic landscapes. Janicic takes the sting from ostensibly horrific scenes, examining the relative and temporal nature of ethical systems.
Tadija Janicic, born in 1980, is from Niksic, Montenegro. He has an undergraduate degree from the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts and a postgraduate degree from the Academy of Arts, both in Novi Sad, Serbia. He has held numerous solo exhibitions in Hungary, Japan, Montenegro and Serbia.
Ikea Love Story 2, 2019, Oil and acrylic on canvas. 120 x 260 cm.
Oh de Laval
Oh de Laval’s ribald expressionism captures a rough, savage emotion. She aims to capture the darker side of human thought and behaviour, she believes these licentious psychological undercurrents lie dormant in us all. Her work is both challenging and humorous: displaying the power of seduction, the power that so often leads to an almost comic destruction of masculinity.
Oh de Laval (born Olga Pothipirom, 1990, Warsaw) is half Polish, half Thai. Laval studied for two years at the Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, before moving on to study sociology at the University of Warsaw, where she became fascinated by Durkheim’s notions of deviance, something that influences her work today.
Self Care Begins with Wine, 2020, Acrylic on canvas. 50 x 40 cm.
Nicasio Fernandez
Nicasio Fernandez twists the features of his anthropomorphic characters to an almost grotesque extent, like loveable childhood figures stretched and pushed toward an ominous unfamiliarity. Despite this, Fernandez manages to imbue his works with a kind of off-beat humour, when viewing his work it is immediately apparent that he enjoys the process of painting.
Nicasio Fernandez was born in Yonkers, New York in 1993. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2015. His recent solo exhibitions include Lose Some, Win None at Galerie Sebastien Adrien, Paris, 2018; Poor-Traits at Maid’s Room, San Juan, 2018; and Off to a Rocky Start at Kustera Projects, Brooklyn, 2017. Fernandez currently lives and works in Mahopac, New York.
Watch, 2020, Oil on Canvas, 43 x 33 cm.
Danny Gretscher
Danny Gretscher’s work is enchanting, it successfully navigates a key challenge of contemporary painting: to be familiar yet unique. Gretscher’s aesthetic fingerprint is built up from a range of symbols, characters and allegorical undertones, working in unison to create an intimate visual experience.
Danny Gretscher was born in Jena, Germany. He is a self taught artist who has lived and worked in Berlin since 2004. He studied for a Diploma in Graphic Design at the College of Stuttgart in 1999 but a year after starting turning toward fine art. Last year Gretscher put on a solo show as part of the Ralph Wood Residency at the Byron School of Art in Australia; and in 2018 his show There is Enough Light took place at the C.O.A Galerie in Montreal, Canada.
Purple Moonshine In His Hands, 2019, Acrylic, spray paint and pencil on board. 112 x 115 cm.
Dominic Dispirito
Dominic Dispirito’s oil on canvas works feature luminescent worlds with a visual style similar to that of a medieval tapestry. Dispirito’s work has been consistently occupied by British class structure: these pieces depict his mother on horseback, being transported to greener pastures.
Dominic Dispirito completed his MFA at Slade in 2017. After graduating, he showed work as part of a duo exhibition at the Dot Project while simultaneously showing his work in Holland. Drawing on his working-class upbringing, as well as his personal battles with drug and alcohol addiction, Dispirito’s paintings are wry and sophisticated explorations of British working class life.
Easy Rider, 2019, Oil on Jute linen. 160 x 120 cm