NYAB Event - Jules de Balincourt "Ecstatic Contact"

Jules de Balincourt "Ecstatic Contact"

Salon 94 Bowery

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Salon 94 Bowery features Jules de Balincourt’s first solo show with the gallery, Ecstatic Contact, comprised of 6 new large-scale paintings.

Known for his abstract and figurative paintings of utopian, dystopian and marginalized communities as well as American politics, de Balincourt breaks new ground in an exploration of collective global anxieties. Without a unified linear narrative, de Balincourt sets his lens to both macro and micro, zooming in and out of physical and psychic realities that comprise individual and collective experiences. The resulting works are a collision of the chaotic harmonies between disparate human experiences.

In his studio, de Balincourt simultaneously paints up to 10 works. Without preparatory drawings, he intuitively moves from painting to painting, allowing one to influence the next. The painting process reveals itself as images and elements are layered with thin washes of oil and acrylic paint on wood panels. Often small vignettes are found close-up in the paintings, scenes that are played out within the context of the larger composition.

This new body of work addresses the uncertainties of contemporary human life. The viewer may be unable to discern whether the burst of color over the ocean in Fireworks signals a celebration or an artillery explosion; whether the crowds gathered in Idol Hands are partying or protesting. This ambiguity is furthered in Off Base, in which soldiers are transformed into approachable boys affecting a pose for an official military photo. The overlay of green, red, brown and yellow camouflage on the soldiers’ bodies and faces unite them in a single abstract composition in which they are at once hidden and rendered visible. Ecstatic Contact, glows in florescent pink and red handprints, spray-painted dots, and linear paint strokes. In the artist’s own words this piece "emphasizes the metaphysical unity and underlying energy behind all exchanges and relationships, acting as the conductor, transmitter, and orbital center to the entire show."