ARTCORE GALLERY VIENNA

Guy Shoham “Black water “

Donnerstag, 19. Jänner 2011, 19:00 – 21:00 Uhr

Zur Ausstellung spricht:
Lucas Gehrmann Kurator der Kunsthalle Wien

Ehrengast S.E. Herr Aviv Shir-On Botschafter des Staates Israel
Dauer der Ausstellung: 20.1.2012- 09.3.2011

The world of the paintings by Guy Shoham oscillates between appearance and darkness. His new oil paintings show night-dark settings, often overlooking fountains or water surfaces, shimmering blue surrounded by black shadows. Reality and fiction merge; the figures evoke memories of past splendour. The excessive artificiality of this magnificence and their naive kitsch moments contrast with the clarity and freshness of running water, opposing the impression of the present and tangibility.
The night and the water point to archetypes within which there is a special rhythm in another element which is different to everyday processes. Carefully placed lights and rich colour fields give the impression of a mysteriously magical and equally brilliantly staged world. Using the still life as a starting point Guy Shoham constructs lovingly balanced compositions, within which baroque-style figures seem to disappear under colourfully illuminated cascades of droplets (“Night operation“, 90,5x150 cm, 2010) or nearly lose themselves between the cheerful musicality of falling water jets and the materiality of stone (“Fountain”, diptych, each 120x90cm, 2009).

Guy Shoham was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1971. After studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and attending a summer course at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, as well as a master class at the Jerusalem Studio School in Hershberg, Guy Shoham switched in 2001 to the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (where he finished with distinction). Between 2003 and 2004 he attended The Prince’s Drawing School, London.
His work is represented in private and public collections in Israel as well as in England. Guy Shoham lives and works in London. The exhibition at the Artcore-Gallery is his first personal show in Austria.