Koen Delaere & Bas Van Den Hurk Exhibitions at The Halsey McKay Gallery

Sat, Mar 12 - Sun, Apr 3  2016

From March 12 until April 3 the ‘The Hyena is a striped dog who thought he was a laughing horse’ and ‘Whatspace‘ exhibitions are being held at the Halsey McKay Gallery. HALSEY MCKAY is pleased to present two exhibitons by Dutch artists Koen Delaere and Bas van den Hurk. In the ground floor gallery the artists are paired for their first two-person show, despite having known and worked in close proximity for over a decade. Upstairs, they present an iteration of their joint curatorial project, Whatspace, which will feature Steven Cox, Cheryl Donegan, Aleana Egan, Wade Guyton, Rachel Koolen, and Wendy White.

Taking its title from a line of Kerouc’s Silly Goofball poems, Delaere and Van den Hurk relish in this type of poetry and contrast. Both artists use painting to address concerns of autonomy and heteronomy – how much can a work determine its own conditions and, how much must it refer to previous works and contexts. While neither constructs a painting in its most traditional sense, both masterfully play with, and pervert, standardized concerns of the grid, pattern, layering, surface and color to form inventive surfaces and nuanced compositions. 

Bas van den Hurk’s new paintings are all made on silk with screened patterns fragmenting an image of Lizica Codreanu wearing the Pierrot-Éclair costume designed by Sonia Delaunay for Rene Le Somptier’s 1926 film, ‘Le P’tit Parigot’. These paintings transitively reveal the relationship between their intern qualities and the networks of production and distribution they are a part of. Sculpture, fashion and the performative aspects of his work aid in the creation an overall environment. The remains of his painting process are contained within plastic bottles, sharing an ambiguous middle ground of being both sculptural and fluid at the same time, of being objects on display and remnants of production.

Similarly performative, the scarred surfaces of Koen Delaere’s paintings mark time with paint itself, forcing a physical and geometric path on his highly textured canvases. The plane is constantly challenged by repeated layering of pigment, as new paint hides arrangements of color and shape, or is scraped off to reveal previous marks below. Delaere uses a method that portrays mirrored surfaces of multiple works, as one is physically pressed against another during their creation. These reflected apparitions disclose the changes over time in lively and rebellious explosions of form and alteration.

About Koen Delaere

Koen Delaere was born in Bruges in 1970. He graduated at the Academy for Visual Education where he studied art and philosophy. He was a De pont Foundation grant awardee. Recent exhibitons have been with Van Horn Gallery, Dusseldorf (DE); De Vleeshal Middelburg, and Gebr. Lehmann Gallery, Dresden, (DE); Gerhard Hofland Gallery, Amsterdam, (NL); Centraal Museum Utrecht, (NL); Tatjana Pieters Gallery, Gand, (BE); MIS, Sao Paulo, (BR)  among many others. In 2015 he was a resident at the CCA Andratx, Mallorca, (ES). He currently lives and works in Tilburg, (NL).

About Bas van den Hurk

Bas van den Hurk studied Fine Art at Academy St. Joost in Breda and Philosophy of Aesthetics at the University of Amsterdam. His work has been show extensively worldwide at, Rod Barton, London, (UK); Ginerva Gambino, Cologne, (DE); Martin van Zomeren Gallery, Amsterdam, (NL);  Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam (NL); Galeria Pancho Fiera, Lima, (PE); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, (NL); Hopstreet Gallery, Brussels, (BE);  Autocenter, Berlin, (DE). Cell Project Space, London, (UK). He currently lives and works in Tilburg, (NL).

About Halsey McKay Gallery

In 2011, curator Hilary Schaffner and artist Ryan Wallace, with the pioneering goal to bring cutting-edge contemporary art to East Hampton, New York, founded Halsey McKay Gallery. High school classmates who were born and raised in New York City, Schaffner and Wallace both have close ties to the East Hampton community. Schaffner is the twelfth generation of the renowned Halsey family – one of the first families to settle in Southampton from England in the 1600s. Schaffner has also spent her summers in East Hampton throughout her life. Wallace’s association with the area developed through his own work as an artist. On the recommendation of his wife who is a private chef in the area and Schaffner’s childhood best friend, Wallace rented a studio in East Hampton, which cemented his own relationship to the town. Celebrating the personal history that influenced the founding of the gallery, Schaffner and Wallace named the gallery Halsey McKay after their respective maternal grandmothers’ maiden names.

By locating the gallery in East Hampton, Schaffner and Wallace saw a unique opportunity to contribute to the extensive artistic history of the town from William Meritt Chase to the Abstract Expressionists to today’s arts community. From the first exhibition, There is an Ocean, highlighting the work of mixed media painter Patrick Brennan, Halsey McKay Gallery has presented an eclectic and experimental range of artists and programming. The gallery features a strong roster of emerging and mid-career artists and currently represents: Glen Baldridge, Timothy Bergstrom, Colby Bird, Ben Blatt, Patrick Brennan, Chris Duncan, Arielle Falk, Elise Ferguson, Rachel Foullon, Ted Gahl, Bryan Graf, Joseph Hart, Matt Kenny, Denise Kupferschmidt, Lauren Luloff, Hilary Pecis, and Matt Rich. Halsey McKay also showcases inventive and exciting group shows including guest curated exhibitions. Further emphasizing the gallery’s support of East Hampton’s artistic legacy, the gallery also hosts off-site installations and projects such as Chris Duncan’s Year at the iconic Elaine de Kooning House.

Halsey McKay Gallery is a member of NADA the New Art Dealer’s Alliance.