Zipper Galeria is pleased to announce its participation in the Emerge section of the fair Art15, curated by Jonathan Watkins, with a series of paintings by the Brazilian artist James Kudo.
The fair will be held at the Olympia Grand Hall in Kensington, from May 21st to May 23rd, bringing 150 art galleries from 40 countries. The event is an initiative by the same group that founded Art HK – Hong Kong International Art Fair, bought by Art Basel in 2011.
Kudo has participated in solo and collective exhibitions in Brazil, Japan, Korea, EUA and Europe. By the impeccable technical quality, vivacity and contemporaneity of his works, he was one of the artists selected for the book 100 Painters of Tomorrow, by Kurt Beers in 2014.
In the series Oxymorons, to be presented in Art15, he accumulates fleeting images and collects disconnected memories in small works that are like coats of arms.
Oxymoron is a figure of speech that harmonizes two opposing concepts while forming a third concept. James Kudo is a creator of oxymorons: in his hand-painted collages the colors are stridently silent, and in the landscapes, sweetly poisonous, everything seems fixed - in the eternity of the moment.
His work is built on recountals, in which fiction and non-fiction are continually merged. They are imagined memories blurring the line between real and unreal. He recalls and revitalizes narratives, traversing between aesthetic and environmental issues. He saw the dream city of his grandparents submerge in water, leaving a trail of destruction and loss. And there he saw the rise of a new reality, less romantic – yet vibrant.
In the reconstruction of this panel of memories, Kudo pastes together fragments of opposing references. He establishes a floating balance of the elements that allude to his life experiences: the oppressive presence of the water barrier gates, the crystalline power of water and the affective memory of picnics by the river. And they emerge represented by symbols created by the artist to embody them: solids imitating wood, the gradation of blues, stitched checkered fabrics.
Wed [May 20]: guest preview
Thurs [May 21]: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Fri - Sat [May 22 - 23]: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.