One Year Anniversary Show

Galerie Pugliese Levi celebrates its first anniversary with a group show presenting selected works of the gallery’s artists. Two new artists will be introduced on this occasion.

Tiina Heiska

The Finnish painter Tiina Heiska will have a solo show at the gallery in September 2018. With a strong sense of physicality and energy, the female figures of Tiina Heiska are set into virtual spaces to unfold a dramatic tension. Referencing photographic and filmic situations, the paintings question the relationship of body, image and personality. Heiska’s paintings describe the human condition; they are intense, mysterious and sometimes troubling.

Rebecca Salter RA

Rebecca Salter RA is a special guest of the anniversary exhibition. The British artist has received international acclaim for her paintings and printmaking. While living in Japan for many years, Salter studied traditional Japanese woodblock printing and she combines this interest with her main practice in painting. The trace of the human hand is paramount and its presence energises the surface, subtly disturbing an underlying calm but providing an opportunity to linger and explore. The work asks for time, and rewards with an opportunity for inner reflection. In 2014 Rebecca Salter was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts and in 2017 she was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy.

Maibritt Ulvedal Bjelke

Maibritt Ulvedal Bjelke's recent works are like optical spaces; dizzying at distance, energetic and distinctly handmade at close range. While working and investigating the potential of colour, Bjelke aspires to remain open, without overly preconceived ideas or conclusions. Each painting has its own inexorable course of development. Via a cut/collage method, creating fascinating patterns - paradigms emerge by coincidence. Seemingly random abstract marks create light and structure, demonstrating the endless multiplicity of possible aspects.

Julian Anderson

The flowers and landscapes by Julian Anderson - who gained a reputation mainly with his architectural photography and his portraits - are imbued by the formal elegance and sensitivity to the beauty of matter. The Cinder Path series is a collection of small flower photographs, “plant portraits”, with clear similarities to Anderson’s more traditional portraiture work.

Marc Lambrechts

The macrocosms of universal space appear in the Cosmic Playgrounds by Marc Lambrechts. The paintings use the humblest matter: corn husks and banana leaves, bamboo and cement, latex and leather, on surfaces opened up by careful and precise scratchings. Lambrechts captures the metaphysics of our world with light-handed charm.

Thibaut Duchenne

In the photographs by the French farmer and photographer Thibaut Duchenne, a rural world is unveiled that is about to disappear but continues its life in evocative forms. His pictures are of a poetic realism which leaves room for loneliness and yet is immediately attractive.

Xiaohua

Reaching beyond traditional painting techniques, Chinese artist Xiaohua opens up the rough canvasses and papers for inner worlds beneath the surface. Stitching, in particular, as an alternative way to painting, contributes to environments characterized by exquisite colour ranges, subtle balance and an atmosphere that is both assured and open.

Birgitte Lund

Birgitte Lund works like an archeologist, uncovering but in reverse order. The landscapes are built up through many textured layers. Tracks are left behind on absorbent or repellent surfaces. Lines, marks, calcified figures from the artist’s graphical sketches, drawings and earlier works form landmarks on the surface. Materials such as fluid rubber, chalk and shellac are used to lay a grid of expressive tracks. Forms and figures are often covered, revealed and then minimized again, before being emphasized, transformed and made solid. This grid of fragmented stories and implied figures is what the artist herself calls the “pictorial, archeological landscape”.