Koen Delaere Solo Exhibit at Mike Weiss Gallery NYC

Thu, May 12 - Sat, Jun 18  2016

From May 12 until June 18, Mike Weiss Gallery presents “Vaya,” a solo exhibition by Koen Delaere, in New York City. In each of his twelve works for the show, Delaere has created juxtapositions of texture and color that can be both meditative and vigorous, smoothly melodic and turbulently staccato. 

The artist’s process, which was born out of the artist’s accidents and experiments, starts by modeling acrylic into a ribbed texture on the canvas.  He then applies his materials – oil paint, acrylic, enamel and gouache – to the surface by striking the top section of the canvas with a brush.  The rest is left to chance: the paint naturally drips, runs and splatters downward across the neat, clapboard-like geometries, mixing with other colors and settling with gestural bravado. From these juxtapositions, the performative nature of the works becomes unavoidably stark.

In the plurality of their surfaces, Delaere’s paintings all emit a sense of time.  The ridges hold a metronomic visual rhythm like sand on the ocean floor – a repetitive and sustaining gesture that balances the other more improvisational elements.  From this relatively uniform grid, the latter more impulsive characteristics embolden the work with glowing hues and expressionistic forms. Yet the chaos is controlled, held in consonance by the textural lattice beneath.

The performative aspect of Delaere’s work extends beyond its relation to the real of music.  His canvases capture the process of their own conception. They document every one of the artist’s actions, whether intentional or not; and because of this transparency, the works retain a sense of becoming even as they hang completed on the wall.

“Colour,” says the artist, “can be narrative or poetic.” Each work in the show verifies this ability, but also presents another – the ability to be both at once, a site of collision for seemingly disjointed characteristics. However, collision is not an end. So while Delaere’s work can broken down into its elemental juxtapositions, its impact derives from and further explicates something else, a critical component of Art – harmony.

About Koen Delaere 

Koen Delaere was born in Bruges, Belgium in 1970, and currently lives and works in Tilburg, the Netherlands. 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).

About Mike Weiss Gallery

Mike Weiss Gallery has spent more than a decade building the careers of artists while maintaining its keystone location on 24th Street in Chelsea, New York City. The gallery focuses on presenting exhibitions with dimensionality – often with ambitious installations – curated by its closely-knit team in collaboration with the artist’s and our commitment to providing exhibitions of artwork with singular & strong substance. In 2013 Mike Weiss Gallery renewed its lease for the next ten years with the goal of maintaining its dedication to artists but with a reinvented look. With renewed emphasis on the limitless future, the gallery emphasizes allowing artists the freedom to play with the (conventional) white-cube model by retaining a fluid attitude, aiming to dismantle the context of its white walls and prevent its intrusion into the content.