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16 january 2024, Flor Linckens

The hidden depths in the work of Emmanuel Barcilon

Emmanuel Barcilon, Untitled, 2023 (2x), Rutger Brandt Gallery

Until 17 February, 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 creation process: in some cases, Barcilon takes up to a year to finish a painting.

Emmanuel Barcilon, Untitled, 2023, Rutger Brandt Gallery

Barcilon doesn't use traditional paint for his serene paintings. Instead, he creates multiple layers by pouring pure pigments — mixed with glossy boat lacquer or varnish — over a horizontally placed wooden panel. These are often contrasting colours which he intermittently manipulates (sometimes using fire), sands, and partly removes, in order to reveal parts of the underlying layers. In this process, Barcilon plays with every nuance between opacity and transparency. At times, he incorporates drawings, collages, or engravings onto the surface. The outcome is a subtle and harmonious interplay of colour, texture, and depth.

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.

Emmanuel Barcilon, Untitled, 2023, Rutger Brandt Gallery

Born in Paris in 1967, Barcilon studied at the École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris Cergy, an institute with its own gallery in Paris. Barcilon's work has been exhibited in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Basel and New York and his exhibition ‘A Turbulent Silence’ 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 'Beneath the Surface' by Emmanuel Barcilon will remain on show in Rutger Brandt Gallery in Amsterdam until 17 February 2024.

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Flor Linckens

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16 january 2024, Flor Linckens

The hidden depths in the work of Emmanuel Barcilon

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