"The Weight of Silence",Eric Lacombe's solo exhibition opens March 5, 2015 at Last Rites Gallery in NYC. A new series of 20 works that draw upon the subject of
consciousness at the very end of life. Crossing over into death, the
artist’s creativity leads to a new kind of awareness and perception; the
artist turns these end of life thoughts into mourning figures while
exploring the connections between consciousness, silence and death.
"THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE"
MAR5 - APR16
LAST RITES GALLERY
325 W. 38th St
NYC
“I love the quiet drama the
living exude whenever they are asleep, or tired of life, or even dead,”
he says. “Imagine the very moment before death when life slips away and
something new begins: this moment is truly precious, because everything
is silent. I want to evoke that stillness, that loneliness, that
sensation of fear, melancholy and happiness.”
Preferring drawing and painting to other mediums, French-born artist, Lacombe focuses on the tormented feelings of his subjects. His compositions combine the three-dimensionality of the foreground to the metaphysical emptiness of the spaces in which the characters move. Suspended between two antithetical versions of reality, and caught in a moment of philosophical introspection, the protagonists in these works are neither alive nor dead. The transformations taking place in this unadorned environment are neither disturbing nor violent, but rather cast in shade and mystery.
The hybrid human and animal creatures in this current body of work are portrayed with thick and tactile applications of paint – usually in a palette of dark, rich colors – grays, browns, blacks and reds. Using thick brushstrokes to literally paint out this drama, the artist is able to deconstruct his subjects’ melancholy in a strange and compelling juxtaposition of forms, concepts and colors. Eric’s transfigurations are meant to evoke the effects of time on the human body and mind. His characters are also in conversation with their own sense of fear and relief, whereas the viewers are invited to step inside the work and make sense of the drama.
The hybrid human and animal creatures in this current body of work are portrayed with thick and tactile applications of paint – usually in a palette of dark, rich colors – grays, browns, blacks and reds. Using thick brushstrokes to literally paint out this drama, the artist is able to deconstruct his subjects’ melancholy in a strange and compelling juxtaposition of forms, concepts and colors. Eric’s transfigurations are meant to evoke the effects of time on the human body and mind. His characters are also in conversation with their own sense of fear and relief, whereas the viewers are invited to step inside the work and make sense of the drama.
