NYAB Event - DALeast “The Laten Photon”

DALeast “The Laten Photon”

Jonathan Levine Gallery (557C W 23rd St.)

This event has ended.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery presents The Laten Photon, an exhibition of new works by Chinese-born, South African-based artist DALeast in what will be his second solo exhibition at the gallery. In conjunction with Laten Photon, the artist will paint new public murals in New York and New Jersey.

Works in The Laten Photon are acrylic and ink on linen, some are tea-stained creating a textured background. In what has become his signature style, DALeast paints human and animal figures using a swirling vortex of organic black lines with white highlights. His use of predominately neutral colors makes the compositions airy and light, yet they are simultaneously overflowing with energy due to the ribbon-like fibers that comprise his subjects. Inspired by the way the material and spiritual world revolves, the artist paints nature and its inhabitants as existing in an environment of endless motion.

The concept behind The Laten Photon is inspired by quantum physics. The photon is an elementary particle that stimulates vision, when its structure is composed of dark matter, that causes atoms to collide and particles transform. We perceive these microscopic collisions as light. Converting invisible energy into a detectable entity, DALeast’s menagerie of subjects soar and hunt while fragments of their movements trail closely behind, like a shadow.

There is a palpable spiritual element in DALeast’s representation of the animal kingdom. It is undistinguishable whether his creatures are unraveling or coming into being, which in the artists words, “aligns with my interest in blurring the distinctions of duality that exist in the universe of our mind.” Day and night, human and beast, chaos and control are all paradoxes brought into question through DALeast’s sweeping imagery.

DALeast was born in 1984 in Wuhan, China and is currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He studied sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts and began making art in public spaces in 2004. His murals can be found around the world including the U.S., Switzerland, Namibia, France, Israel, Australia and China. In October 2014, DALeast will paint a large-scale mural in Berlin on the façade of Urban Nation, a museum scheduled to open during the summer of 2015, which will exhibit artists who enrich urban spaces.