10 february 2023, Flor Linckens
Discover the work of Marc-Antoine Garnier, Julius Hofmann and Sinéad Spelman at Art Rotterdam
The art fair Art Rotterdam (until 12 February) offers an excellent opportunity to discover new artists. In this article, we highlight the work of three artists who present their work there: Marc-Antoine Garnier, Julius Hofmann and Sinéad Spelman. These three artists all work in a different medium and play with the prevailing conventions and techniques within that medium. On GalleryViewer you can find the online fair catalogue, with an overview of all the presented works at the fair.
Marc-Antoine Garnier | Galerie Bacqueville
In his work, the French artist Marc-Antoine Garnier explores the boundaries between sculpture and photography. Garnier tries to show how the image, through its materiality as well as the relationship it has with its support, can help us to get a better understanding of time and space. The artist strives to 'deconstruct' and 'reconstruct' the medium of photography, partly through a spatialization of this traditional two-dimensional medium. Throughout his practice, he shapes paper by means of fragmentation, laminating and folding or by creating autonomous volumes. In terms of subjects, Garnier is fascinated by nature and natural phenomena. Garnier completed an education at the École Supérieure d'art et de Design in Rouen. His work has been shown at institutions like the Nishieda Foundation in Japan and the Frac Grand Large in Dunkirk and his work has been included in the collection of FRAC Normandie Rouen, among others.
The practice of the German artist Julius Hofmann is strongly inspired by his youth in the 1990s, in which games were an important form of escapism. For Hofmann, painting in itself is also a form of escapism, from the chaos of our times and the uncertainty about the future. With a brush in his hand, working in an ancient and analogous medium, the artist experiences a certain control over it. Hofmann creates dark and slightly absurdist works on contemporary themes, within an aesthetic that refers to computer graphics and CGI, but also to architecture, the Neue Sachlichkeit (1918-1933) and even works from the 17th century. For example, he is interested in the ways in which spaces and surfaces are represented in (old-fashioned) digital worlds. A recurring colour in his practice is the colour purple. Hofmann studied at the Hochschule fuer Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, where he was taught by Neo Rauch, among others. His work has been shown in a solo exhibition at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig and in a group show at the G2 Kunsthalle in Leipzig.
ethall gallery from Barcelona presents the work of the Irish artist Sinéad Spelman. The artist makes sensitive and fragile work on paper and canvas that appears deceivingly simple. We see a recurring female character who serves as a kind of mask or alter ego for the artist. Spelman depicts emotional situations that refer to her personal life, but have a universal quality at the same time. Her often anonymous figures tend to be fragmented and incomplete, carrying an inherent dysfunction: what does this say about the character's identity and physical integrity? Her characters are usually passive and hunched over, looking lonely and deep in thought. They experience 'anti-epic adventures' full of ambiguous, disturbing and impossible situations that invite the viewer to offer their own interpretation. In addition to drawings and paintings, the artist also makes sculptures.
