Espaces indicibles

It is with great pleasure that Galerie Trois Points presents Espaces Indicibles, a collective exhibition presenting the works of artists Alex McLeod, James Olley and Luke Painter, taking place from November 17th to December 15th 2012. The three young Toronto-based artists share a strong sense of architecture, although it is explored through completely different mediums and strategies.

Alex McLeod creates atmospheres where the infinity of details, patterns and textures generate enchanting worlds. His landscapes and urban views integrate fictional architectures in the shape of skyscrapers or that of fortresses, which are all entirely realized by computer. It is the visual language that McLeod develops by digital rendering that allows him to interrogate the limits of the medium, creating a tension between the real and virtual, but also the pictorial and photographic mediums.

James Olley explores the permeability between figuration and abstraction through the representation of architecture. The artist works on the materiality of painting by various processes like scratching, accumulation and large gestures, the eye going back and forth between the materiality of the surface and the suggested space in the painting. The dynamic palette and multiple spaces layered give his compositions an energy reflecting the complexity and evolution of the urban spaces in which we cohabit.

Luke Painter paints troubled landscapes where the lack of human presence creates an unsettling sense of eeriness and loneliness. The very detailed buildings suddenly appear unfamiliar as everything seems petrified, as if fixed on paper: the fineness of the gesture and textures add to Painter’s work a sensibility that makes the tension between the rendering’s preciousness and the ghastly aspect of the subject matter tangible. The repetition, use of ornament and laborious aspect of mark-making within the works is important for referencing this traditional use of woodblock.

Espaces Indicibles, or “ineffable space” as defined by Le Corbusier, is an effect created by a work reaching “a maximum of intensity, when it has the best proportions and has been made with the best quality of execution”. McLeod, Painter and Olley all explore their specific medium trying to push back the boundaries to reach this effect that makes the viewer go beyond the space, questioning his own sense of perception.

Press release