“A New Beginning” Exhibition

Van Der Plas Gallery

This event has ended.

Van Der Plas Gallery presents the works of fifty local and international artists in A New Beginning. The newest edition of our All Art + series is inspired by the spirit of the Vienna Secession, a highly influential Art Nouveau movement that brought the art world into a “new beginning.” Pre-Secession (late 1800s), Austrian art was controlled by the uncompromising traditions of the Vienna Academy of Art, which was under the direct authority of the state. Visionaries Gustav Klimt and Joseph Hoffmann, among others, challenged the establishment and ushered in this new age of creative freedom.

After an eventful and trying 2020, Van Der Plas Gallery is looking to 2021 as a year of rebirth. Consequently, we hope our gallery can embody the spirit of the Vienna Secession, the physical home and exhibition space of the movement.

Jacob Guzman’s Take It Off envelops the viewer in a riotous mix of color and line. The artist blends flesh tones and symbols as faces, masks and objects emerge and recede from the viewer’s sight. A candle sits in the corner, unlit; blurry figures sit around a table; a skinny tree struggles to grow out of the frame. Guzman describes the painting as a “direct message telling you to strip yourself of your image”. During the tumultuous events of the past year, many of us have had ample time to contemplate the self-images that we carry with us; what mask of your own might you see reflected in Take It Off?

In his work 26 d.D (26 after Djonga), Brazilian artist Pedro Mazzinghy brings together Klimt, Basquiat, and the Pieta. A multicolored mother holds a skeletal crowned figure in her arms as he holds aloft a scepter. Like many works in the Pieta theme before it, 26 d.D mourns through tragedy, with the hope of a future resurrection - a “New Beginning” after a year of hardships.

In the 19th century in Italy’s Dolomites mountains, bears were once hunted to extinction. Over the past 30 years however, conservation efforts have finally brought back a thriving population of brown bears to their original habitat. The pictorial gesture of John Bellan’s The Last Bear 1897, depicts this return in stylized fashion. A powerful bear towers over a human figure exploding out of the landscape of the mountains and the valleys contained within itself future generations taking back their rightful home.

Sarah Hall’s piece Blank Face and No Expectations offers a cathartic experience to viewers through the image of a distorted portrait. The representation of a face that was once a man has been melted down into a mask concealing the upset caused by so many traumatic and unexpected events that occurred within the past year.