Until 10 July, Rutger Brandt Gallery will show the work of the Parisian painter Emmanuel Barcilon. These are abstract, often monochrome works, which, after a more thorough inspection, appear to disguise a multitude of transparent layers and colours. This is the result of an extremely slow process: in some cases, Barcilon takes up to a year to finish a painting.
Barcilon does not use traditional paint for his work, but rather, he creates different layers by adding pure pigments - mixed with glossy boat lacquer or varnish - to a horizontally placed wooden panel. These are often contrasting colours that he subsequently processes, sands and partly removes, in between layers, in order to reveal parts of the underlying layers. In his work, Barcilon plays with all the nuances between opacity and transparency. The viewer is unable to perceive all the layers in the painting with the naked eye — and with it, the memory of the canvas. Only the edges of the work reveal which colours the painter used. Because of that process of sanding and adding new layers, the result is quite layered and mirrored. As a viewer, on the one hand you are sucked into the depth, and on the other hand, the work functions as a kind of mirror, in which you are confronted with your own reflection.
Born in Paris in 1967, Barcilon studied at the École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris Cergy, an education that has been described as a laboratory of contemporary art and also has its own gallery in Paris. Barcilon's work has been exhibited in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Basel and New York and was shown at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) in the Sala Congni di S. Apollonia and subsequently in the Italian museum Museo di Asolo.
The exhibition 'Beyond Reflection' can be seen in Rutger Brandt Gallery in Amsterdam until July 10.