Lumen Travo Gallery is delighted to open the gallery season with a new solo exhibition by Dutch artist Phil Bloom (1945, NL).
Featuring a rich selection of works on paper and paintings, the show presents a comprehensive overview of Bloom’s oeuvre, spanning more than 40 years of artistic activity.
The occasion also marks the artist’s 80th birthday, celebrating one of the most intriguing figures of the Amsterdam art scene since the 1970s.
In the main exhibition hall, visitors are immediately greeted by the monumental canvas Alice World in the Robots Future (2014). Resembling a mysterious portal, this work introduces an alien figure gently inviting us into Bloom’s surreal universe, enchanting yet unsettling. From this point, the other works radiate through the gallery like the branches of a tree, revealing the multitude of subjects and inspirations that populate Bloom’s imaginative world.
Skulls, bees, deer, bones, feet, teeth, dolls, crocodiles: there is a specific fascination in the almost obsessive recurrence of certain motifs. These elements construct the visual language through which Bloom channels her inner stream of consciousness.
Her work draws inspiration from her dreams and travels to America, India, Japan, Russia, and Lapland, blending mythological figures and cultural symbols into vivid, often whimsical compositions. In her practice, she explores themes of innocence, identity, and the human condition, juxtaposing elements of the macabre with the enchanting. From Disney's iconic cartoon characters, to the elephant god Ganesh from India, these works evoke a magical world where women and men appeared surrounded by forces both playful and hunting.
With a provocative eye on today’s world, Bloom engages also with contemporary issues such as war violence, the bio-industry, societal robotization, and the decline of biodiversity, spotlighting the crucial role of insects. Unafraid to challenge societal rules since the very beginning of her career, Bloom’s practice is steeped in subversion, not from a shallow urge to shock, but from a profound reflection on humanity and nature. The way she portrays her dreams feels disarming in its honesty, as though, despite the surreal language of her visions, she leaves no room for misunderstanding.
Through an additional display of curious objects collected by Bloom over the years, The Deer Years transforms the gallery into a wunderkammer, offering a rare chance to peek into the artist’s inspirations. The interplay between the real objects and their painted counterparts creates a strange dance of contrast, enhancing the visitor’s experience and blurring the boundary between reality and artistic creation.
In the office and corridor spaces, Bloom’s drawings depict the rawness of dreams (or nightmares) that her unconscious night after night brings to the surface. These oneiric visual agglomerations tell a multitude of stories, symbols and ancestral references. They open a window into the artist’s intimate, hidden side and, by extension, onto humanity itself.
While moving through the show, Nietzsche’s famous quote comes to mind: “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”. These works are anything but passive objects: they are alive, imbued with an otherwordly mysticism. They gaze right back at us with a dense intensity that Bloom masterfully channels.