NYAB Event - Angelo Filomeno “The House of Magic Affection”

Angelo Filomeno “The House of Magic Affection”

Galerie Lelong

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Galerie Lelong presents The House of Magic Affection, an exhibition of intricately designed and embroidered paintings by Italian artist Angelo Filomeno. Over a dozen recent paintings will fill the main gallery, paired with a series of intimate works on linen in the gallery’s project space. Highlighting Filomeno’s technical and aesthetic skill in merging painting, embroidery, and craft, his unique visual language is presented through a variety of rich materials including silk, crystal, and metal. In a departure from his last exhibition, Filomeno introduces a serialism not seen in his previous bodies of work, an expanded use of color and materials, including muslin, and a variety of characters that have never before been incorporated into each of the hand-made canvases.

Presenting immediately alluring, albeit complex, imagery has long been the foundation of Filomeno’s work in his exploration of themes such as death, destruction, isolation, and obsession. Drawn from and aligned with the artist’s personal history, Filomeno’s work as a child apprentice to a clothes tailor still informs his intricate technique and production as both art and skilled craft. Often blending elements from his personal history with his fantastical imagery, the exhibition’s title, The House of Magic Affection, references the artist’s childhood home.

In this exhibition Filomeno maintains his careful attention to the interplay between texture, material, content, and presentation, attracting viewers to his constructed canvases with the juxtaposition of often unsettling content and aesthetic refinement. Filomeno’s iconography, in contrast to the allure of his work, often incorporates and explores the allegorical and the macabre, including insects, fish, human body parts, skeletons, and reptiles. In addition to the paintings, two recent sculptures will be on view, further revealing Filomeno’s world of ominous beauty and extraordinary workmanship.