NYAB Event - Ariane Lopez-Huici "Priscille"

Ariane Lopez-Huici "Priscille"

Hionas Gallery LES

This event has ended.

Hionas Gallery presents a solo exhibition of photographs by Ariane Lopez-Huici from her portfolio devoted to the handicapped model, Priscille. Each work from Priscille is self-titled with a corresponding year, and all were taken between 2009 and 2012. This is the artist’s first exhibition with Hionas Gallery.

This collection of black & white nudes depicts an artist’s muse who is fragmented only in the physical sense; Priscille is a contemporary Aphrodite whose varied poses reveal both a vulnerability and intensity that practically redefines the entire Western tradition of the sculptural nude, from Hellenistic Times to Mapplethorpe. The artist and model first met in 2009, and following their initial encounter, Priscille remarked to Lopez-Huici, “You didn’t ask me to pose for you.” Not a provocation, this half question in fact seduced Lopez-Huici and implored her to correct the omission. Before her was a woman unabashed, emotionally and sensually whole if not physically.

In the beginning we find Lopez-Huici’s subject in a series of postures that range from the demure to seductive. As we visit the years 2010 and 2011, the artist interplays more shadow and seems to challenge Priscille to assume poses of greater difficulty, and in one instance invites the model’s lover Frederic to enter the frame and embrace her in ballet-like ecstasy. In the culminating moment of the series, Priscille breaks from character to face the camera, her form altered by a distended belly and quite literally full of life.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is quoted as saying, “Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.” From these words we may derive the implication that born from absence is something of equal yet opposite measure. While loss is experienced through absence, Lopez-Huici presents a paradox with her model, yielding instead a newfound sense of substance with each line and curve and vale of Priscille’s exposed body. Her form, her shape, and at moments her enormous display of physical strength are all nature’s delight.

Ariane Lopez-Huici is a French-born photographer who divides her time between New York and Paris. Following her art studies, in 1970 she worked as the assistant to filmmaker Nelson Pereira dos Santos, father of Brazil’s Cinema Novo. Through this experience Lopez-Huici learned lighting and photographic techniques, and developed a profound attachment to avant-garde cinema. In 1975 she decided to dedicate herself entirely to photography, and two years later staged her first one-woman exhibition at Dartmouth College. Lopez-Huici’s work focuses on the human body, transgressing the conventional canon of beauty. Accentuating the shadowy areas of the human adventure, she uses black and white photography with a pronounced grain and deep blacks. Her series Aviva, Dalila, and Holly all show a passion for Rubensesque bodies, while her African series Adama & Omar and Keneboubo Ogoïre suggest a deep fascination with physical and sensual forms of expression. Her international solo exhibitions have occurred in such venues as New York University in France, Paris; The French Institute, New York; New York Studio School, New York; Institut Valencià d’Art Moderne, Valencia, Spain; Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France; Galerie Frank, Paris; AC Project Room, New York; Galerie Dominique Marchès, Chateauroux, France; the Photography Center, Los Angeles; and PS1, New York, among others.