NYAB Event - Vincent Hamel “Paintings (2009-2013)” Exhibition

Vincent Hamel “Paintings (2009-2013)” Exhibition

Howard Scott Gallery

This event has ended.

Howard Scott Gallery presents its sixth solo exhibition by the Amsterdam-based painter, Vincent Hamel. The forthcoming exhibition will focus on paintings made between 2009 and 2013. (It follows a memorable show of the artist’s works on paper made between 1972 and 2012 which closed on 6 January 2013.)

It is essential to show the materials used, because each type of material radiates its own atmosphere.

V. Hamel

The artist was born in Amsterdam in 1931, into an artistic family of painters and actors. His decades spent in the studio have been marked by an extraordinary level of focus and concentration in developing his sensibility.

He disavows any deliberate reference in his paintings to the world outside the studio and concentrates on the creation of a specific object by focusing his investigations on the fundamental aspects of “what is a painting”. His principal concerns include: the strength and clarity of each individual stroke of paint and its directionality; the unifying accretion of numerous component strokes to achieve a continuous surface and an all-over field; the specificity of the coloration gradually created by the deliberate layering of transparent hues; and the tension realized through the gradual creation of a physical object which possesses both energy and repose.

The borders of his paintings gain significance through his very deliberate attention to their exact physicality. He has referred to them as the zone in which the interior calm of the painting and the “chaos” of the outside world meet.

In 2011, Mr Hamel was honored with a large survey exhibition at the Museum Belvedere, in Heerenveen, The Netherlands. The exhibition was accompanied by a superb catalogue with seven texts and numerous color plates. (Copies of it are available at the gallery.) His work is included in numerous public and private collections in Europe and the United States, including those of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and Museum Boymans, Rotterdam.

[Image: Triad, 2009, 26.8 x 62.3 in., 67.9 x 158.1 cm, Wax crayon on litho paper]