MAXWELL STEVENS
Drum Circle, Central Park
2019 Oil on canvas 160 x 130 x 5,5 cm - 62,9 x 51,2 x 2,1 inTRAIT D'UNION
Pepe HIDALGO & Maxwell STEVENS
Curated by Arin Frut
Tbilisi, Georgia
April 22nd - June 21st 2023Galerie bruno massa is thrilled to introduce to international audience TRAIT D'UNION with PEPE HIDALGO & MAXWELL STEVENS and curated by ARIN FRUT.
TRAIT D'UNION draws a line between two very different universes from North America, one is based on Spanish culture & dissipated folklore inherited by Pablo Picasso, Cubism or Juan Gris, the other one is more constructed and sophisticated with MAXWELL STEVENS's detailed oil, quasi-architectural, even for his abstracts.
PEPE HIDALGO is a Canadian artist with Spanish origins born in 1953 who lives and works in Delta, British Columbia, Canada. An important purpose in his work is that it can speak for itself. When we sit, look, and listen, we often find meaning and understanding in what is in front of us. Imagery, symbolism, color, texture, shape, and volume are used to express his thoughts and feelings. Many of his paintings narrate a story, experience, or thought he wants to share with the audience. Just as each individual has their interpretation of events, viewers have their own interpretation depending on their life experiences. Pepe's work is abstract and figurative narrative. For a painting to be narrative the artist needs to incorporate elements the viewer can identify, this allows them to participate in the narrative of the painting. The paintings are open so the viewer can penetrate the artwork and feel as if they are the creator themselves. This allows people to have different interpretations and give their own meaning to his painting. His objective is finally for people to have a personal and unique experience with his marvelous art.
 MAXWELL STEVENS is an American artist born in 1971 who lives and works in New York, USA. He received an MFA in Painting from the School of Art at Washington University in Saint Louis in 1995, and a BFA in Painting from The Atlanta College of Art, now SCAD Atlanta in 1993. He is best known for his multi-layered paintings and drawings that overlay photorealistic images with vivid, energized abstractions. Shortly after moving to New York City, after many years of working exclusively in non-representational abstraction, Maxwell Stevens embarked on a significant stylistic shift in his approach to his art. He began composing his canvases with recognizable imagery, incorporating photorealist figures and lifelike scenes into his works, and then abruptly superposing these paintings directly with tumultuous abstractions. This new period is clearly identifiable by large abstract painted gestures superimposed directly on top of photorealist paintings that have become increasingly descriptive, with each series correlating the seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, around a deeply personal and often autobiographical theme. Maxwell Stevens has exhibited extensively and internationally in contemporary venues from Tokyo to Dallas to New York, alongside major artists such as Cy Twombly, Joseph Beuys, and Dorothea Rockburne. His paintings and projects have been
featured in numerous publications including Art in America, NY Arts Magazine, Meer Magazine, The Museum of Modern Art Contemporary Drawing and Print Associates Bulletin, Fine Art Connoisseur, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Art Papers, among many others. In partnership with KUNSTMATRIX Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 27 10553 Berlin, Germany 34-36, Irakli Abashidze, Vake Tbilisi, Georgia tel. +995 599 073 886 12, rue Vivienne 75002 Paris, France tel. +33 (0) 6 61 00 10 33 only via Signal & WhatsApp |
